Welcome to episode forty five of Get Out Alive, a podcast where me your
host Ashley. Somehow every time forgets this introduction and just had to listen to
a previous episode to remember it. But I am your resident animal expert,
and I will lead you through this story. Oh no, you just kept
going. I'm sorry. I know this is new. Yeah, I mean
it's only the forty fifth time we've done it. Yeah. Actually, yeah,
are we re starting? That? Is it my turn? Now?
You know what, We're just gonna make it your We're gonna send it all
right. Yeah. Well, I'm Nick and I am still a little bit
sick from some Chinese food last night, so we are really thriving right now.
I also ate this Chinese food and did not get sick, so it
sounds like more of a U issue than a Chinese food issue. Well,
I think it was the drink I had, so that's kind of what I'm
blaming the moment. It was very sugary and gross. So oh yeah.
Anyways, welcome to this podcast, doing well? Do we have anything else
to talk about before we just dive right in? I guess no, great,
So if you join us at patreon dot com, slash get out a
live podcast. Sometimes I throw out a poll for like what episode you guys
want to hear next, like what species? And I was gonna do that
this time, but then Nick had a recommendation, which we are not doing
today because there's another story or species that's been like really stuck in my mind
for ever, basically ever since someone pointed it out to me, So we're
gonna do it. Deal today, we're talking about coyotes again. Oh my
god, I know, big schocker. This is the first time I like
legitimately told you what we were talking about and gave you resources to look at
it yourself. So I thought, I mean, like you just told me
right now is well, you did mention last night when you're a little bit
drunk, so maybe you accidentally told me. No, it wasn't an accident.
I'm just really excited to talk about it. So yeah, it's fucking
good. I'm breathing through the thing like as we speak pretty much. So
oh great, So your insight will be awesome. I've been doing homework all
them. Sorry, hey, me too. And then I still did this,
so you're better than me. We know that. Yeah, thank you
for that. Anyways, Also, thank you to at Jenny d on the
Block on Instagram who suggested this story, and also they were not the only
one to suggest this story to us. I just could not keep track of
everyone who sent it, but she or they sent it. They were the
first one most recently, Yes, they were the first. There was the
most recent. Pretty much. It's a good name to shout out Jenny d
on the Block like j Lo right was Was she Jenny on the Block back
in the day? Was she? I think? So? Is that like
one of her songs or something? Huh, that's before our time, so
I'm not completely sure. I definitely remember listening to it as a child.
Yeah, people are gonna hate hearing that that Jennifer Lopez like her sin cres
before our time, but it was like way before our time. Yeah.
Also I've heard that she's like a terrible person, so I don't give a
shit. Sorry, I have no idea. Yeah. Anyways, so this
is an older case that took place in two thousand and nine, and I
well, first of all, like all of you sent it to me,
so that was great. But the reason I specifically like it's been stuck in
my head and I want to go over it is because there is a new
study that was published in twenty twenty two on why this attack happened. So
today we're talking about Taylor Josephine Stephanie Lucio, also known more commonly as Taylor
Mitchell. Yeah, I mean that full name is a lot so I things,
see you're shortening it. But also like Mitchell isn't in her name,
and also I don't know where mitchell Yeah, I don't know where it came
from, but like sounds good, so stepparent or something who knows, not
me, that's for sure to me either, like make stuff up though you
usually do, damn right. So she was more commonly known as Taylor Mitchell
because it was her stage name. Because she was a country folk singer and
songwriter from Toronto, Canada. Oh cool. She had an album named four
Year Consideration that was released in March of two thousand and nine. Had spent
the summer of two thousand and nine busy performing, including a performance at the
Winnipeg Folk Festival in June of that year. She was up and coming,
like big deal, yeah, in the fulk country music category, at least
in Canada, Canada. I don't know how big that scene is but but
hey, you know what, good for her? She seems like she's killing
in her own way, you know. Yeah. So, one of the
contributors to her album said that she wrote songs beyond her years and said about
her quote, she didn't provide answers as so many of her age tried to
do. There was no precociousness about her. Instead, she just asked questions.
All right, she's nice, yeah, yeah, And to promote her
new album in October two thousand and nine, she set out on a solo
tour of the Maritime Provinces, which is just like Eastern Canada, and had
just received her license in a new car. She was nineteen years old.
Oh oh yeah, shit, oh damn. Young people can be successful,
just not us. I think we're doing okay, yeah, sure, yeah,
you know what, you're right. Yeah, we both live places and
have bank accounts, so we're not starving to death out for dinner last night,
so we're doing that well at least. Yeah. True. And go
on to shopping spree. Oh I did so good, But that's a different
story. You really did. Although I will say, like the new sweatshirt
that you bought that you're currently wearing has a bear on it, and I
have to believe that you did that on purpose. I mean like it definitely
caught my attention, and then I was like, you know what, send
it? So I spent the fourteen dollars on an old Navy sweatshirt, which
is big for me because I don't buy a lot of clothes. Yeah,
do you want to tell everyone about your jacket? I bought one hundred and
seventy dollars jacket for thirty dollars. I'm so pumped. I bought a fifty
dollars jacket for twenty dollars. There we go. You could have had it
for less few Let me use my military discount. They also asked me if
I was a college student, and I panicked and said no, although I
am that you've spent most of your life being call student. So yeah,
I know it's disappointing. I didn't use it to my advantage for once.
Anyways, we just completely went off the rails from this story. We did,
and that's you know what I've like, two or three people have been
like, stupid the story. No, No, No, that's not what
this is. No, anyways, to get back to that story, The
tour started on October twenty third, and around this time Taylor was also nominated
for a Young Performer of the Year but the Canadian Folk Music Awards. Wow,
I know, so she was doing really well well it was so.
She had just performed in Lucasville, which is near Halifax, and had two
days before her next concert in Sydney, so she decided to visit a national
park and do some hiking. Specifically, Taylor decided to visit the Cape Breton
Highlands National Park. Have you heard of it? I have not known.
So for some background on this national park. The Cape Breton Highlands National Park
is nine hundred and fifty square kilometers in size, which is roughly three hundred
and sixty seven square miles. So all that area consists of steep cliffs,
deep canyons, and a forested plateau that borders the Atlantic Ocean. And it
has a mix of habitat types too, including Acadian, boreal and tiger habitats.
Oh my, tega, I never know how to say that word.
I've read it and I've barely ever had to say it out loud. I
don't even know what Akadian forest is like. I don't know what that means.
These are mostly high elevation forest types sick and like cold. High elevation
cold. Well, most high elevations are cold, so very cool. It
has twenty six trails and eight campgrounds and is home to a lot of animals,
including timber wolves. That's reason enough for me to want to go,
Hey everyone, Ashley from the future here. I just wanted to pop in
and say that I was actually incorrect in saying that wolves are in the Cape
Briton Highlands National Park. On their website, they actually say that they are
extirpated from the area, so they no longer live there, but you still
live there years ago, so no more wolves there, but they used to
live there. Okay, back to the episode, Coyotes, caribou, moose,
and black bears just to name a few. Obviously there's more than just
mammals there, but those are my favorite of course. So this national park
in recent years, back in two thousand and nine, had been experiencing a
lot of negative incidents between humans and coyotes, with thirty two cases to be
exact. I don't know what timeframe that's from specifically, but thirty two cases
in recent years, and seven of those in all coyotes biting and injuring people.
Oh shit, which is not normal. It's not good. No.
So the park also has some pretty extreme topography, and although we know coyotes
are super adaptable to new environments, this one was really hard for them to
adapt to. But they still did. But the way that they managed to
make claim to this area was by killing moose and caribou. That's impressive.
Actually, yeah, how many fucking chios to take to kill moose? A
few more than one? I would say, sex sure, Yeah, I
don't know. Just that's crazy. Maybe if you had the study, you
would have found out you sent it to make an hour ago. I sent
it multiple hours ago. I'm sorry. Yeah, don't put that on me.
So, coyotes are known to switch prey depending on where they are and
like the availability of different types of prey. So across the entire species of
coyote, which is like across this entire country of the United States and also
lower and everywhere else coyotes are. They're only in North America. Oh really,
I do not. Yeah, Oh very cool. I think we talked
about that in our coyote episode because I was like, you would think that
I'd be a national animal. Yeah, you'd think that we'd have more pride
and an animal that's like super adaptable and also only really exists here, but
we tend to hate them. So instead we have bald eagles that also are
in Russia, but they're that's just their spy on them for us. Okay,
you're really lending to the whole like birds or government drones thing. Oh
no, no, no, no no, they're definitely not. No,
don't worry about that. No one looking too that great. Anyways, My
point was coyotes are known to like kill a bunch of different stuff, right
yea, And other studies have shown that coyotes are capable and do kill large
undulates like white tailed deer and elk, but they need the conditions to be
like perfect for that to happen. So it's very opportunistic mostly. And also
if they live in a system where there are a lot of other prey types
like snowshoe hairs, human food voles, big undulates like moose do not make
up a lot of their diet. Yeah, it make no sense form we
go after something that big if they have easy small prey nearby. Exactly.
So on the plateau, the forested plateau that I mentioned in the Cape Breton
Highlands National Park in the winter, there are really extreme snow drifts that also
like shift a lot, and sometimes moose will get caught in these snow drifts
and become completely immobilized. No shit. Yeah. Oh, and in this
national park there are not a lot of other prey options for coyotes, so
they're often relying on killing big animals like moose to survive. And like I
was saying, when moose get will mobilize, like that's kind of when coyotes
strike. Yep. So now let's get back to Taylor's hike. It was
October twenty seventh, two thousand and nine, and Taylor set out on the
Skyline trail around two forty five pm. A couple had passed Taylor going on
the opposite direction near the beginning of the trail as they were finishing up their
hike and Taylor was just getting started. Does that make sense? Yep.
Around three pm that day, an American couple Mike and Gale, were hiking
on the access road and headed to the car park, and they moved off
of the trail as Toootes approached them, seemingly fearless, walking towards them along
the road in the opposite direction, so like headed towards Taylor. Okay,
yeah, that's that's pretty sketchy. And one of the members of the couple
photographed the coyotes before they headed directly to the car park. After this,
six minutes later, Mike and Gale heard what they assumed was either animals howling
or a woman screaming. Oh no, there was a telephone box at the
park. I'm assuming, like, oh my god, what are they called?
It's like an emergency phone. Yeah, thank you. So they called
park rangers and reported the noises, and as they were like kind of hanging
out in the parking lot, four other hikers arrived and Mike and Gale told
them about what they had heard before Mike and Gale left. So these four
hikers began walking along the access road and walked for several minutes before they found
car keys and a small knife. But that's it. No person, no
blood, not yet. Oh god, how'd that happen? You're about to
find out. So at the head of the trail there was like a small
clearing, and in that clearing they saw torn pieces of bloody clothing in a
pool of blood. On the ground. Oh shit. There was also a
bathroom in this clearing and it had blood on the door. Oh in my
mind, it's like a bloody handprint. Yeah, like she was trying to
get into the door, or whoever this may have been was or whatever it
was, was trying to get the door. Yeah, I have a bloody
hand print of a human that a coyote may have put there. Yeah,
you don't know. At three twenty five pm, the hikers found Taylor lying
near some trees with a coyote standing over her. Oh. Man, so
spoiler it was probably a human handprint note Oh yeah, yeah, probably yeah
yeah yeah. Oh fuck. So three of the hikers charged the coyote multiple
times until it moved away and Taylor was alive and able to speak to them,
But the coyote did not fully leave the area and actually was staying there
and growling at them. Oh fuck. And it was not the only coyote,
because there was another one that was near by as well, but like
wasn't approaching them necessarily. That's fucking crazy. So the coyotes stayed in the
area until a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer arrived and shot it with a shotgun.
Mounte. So they killed the like most aggressive like nearby coyote, and
then the other one took off into the woods. Makes sense. Taylor had
been bitten all over her body and had particularly serious wounds on her leg and
her head. She was taken to a community health center on the Cabot Trail
and then was airlifted to the Queen Elizabeth two or the second. I don't
know how. They clearly don't know how royal people work. I just Elizabeth.
That was so stupid. It was. It's called Queen Elizabeth the second
Health Sciences Center, got it, got it? But like it's the second
Queen Elizabeth. So my my American ass head was like Elizabeth number two,
Elizabeth Junior. Yeah, exactly, thank you. There's not a lot of
laughs in this story, so I'm gonna sneak them in whenever we can.
Let's do it. Anyways, she was lifted to that Health Sciences Center in
critical condition. I'm only laughing because I'm stupid. You sound like me,
I know, Are you okay? Who knows? Are you sure you didn
get food poison last night? Just of the brain apparently still the brain?
Anyways, time to stop laughing, because so Taylor was lifted to this health
center and actually ended up dying of her injuries, which was mostly because of
blood loss. Yeah. Fuck. So this is obviously a huge deal and
still remains a huge deal to this day because as of twenty twenty three,
Taylor Mitchell or Taylor Josephine Stephanie Lucio is the only human to have been killed
by coyotes. That's crazy to me that she's the only one. Yeah,
right, And I think that's why they wanted to do this study, because
they were like, what happened to make this happen? You said that she
was like just on a trail, right, She wasn't out in the middle
of fucking nowhere, Like she was in a place like normally traversed by people.
Yeah, you figure, like a group of other people had just passed
her. The coyotes were coming from the direction of the car park. They
just ran past other people. Yeah, and it's the clearing at the trailhead.
So I don't know exactly how busy this National Park is, but this
is like a very human frequented area, you know. Yeah. So naturally,
after this happened, officials set out to find the other coyote that was
responsible for the attack, that was there when the mounted police officer arrived.
So hours after the attack, the trail was closed to the public and a
warden was posted at the bathroom that had the blood on the door that we
talked about, and a female coyote appeared and was shot and killed after displaying
aggressive behavior. What the fuck? Yeah, within one kilometer or less than
a mile, the skyline trail, leg hold traps were set out and three
other coyotes were caught and killed this way, within five kilometers or three miles,
A large male coyote weighing about forty two pounds was killed on November fourteenth.
So they just start calling coyotes in the park just in that area weird.
Why do you think that's weird? If you killed the one that was
hovering over the body, like, have the others shown any kind of Like
the one that's aggressive towards the park ranger and they shot that one, makes
sense, cool, But like to catch them in snares then kill them like
that doesn't make any sense to me, Like they haven't done anything to show
aggressiveness. I think if we were talking about a different predator, like a
bear for example, it would make sense to be confused by that, right,
But I think the assumption here, and once again, I'm just making
an assumption based off of the conditions of what happened. I think they're assuming
that one coyote or two coyotes couldn't do this. It had to be multiple
Okay, Okay. I don't know if they ascertained that from her wounds or
if they just assumed, like because of coyote behavior, that it had to
be group of them. Yeah, because, like we talked about before,
a group of them has to kill a moose, because like one or two
coyotes wouldn't be able to do that, especially if the biggest of all of
them was only forty two pounds, like it would have to take multiple individuals
to do it. Is it what I'm assuming why they did it? Yeah?
And I do know that we have bigger coyotes here on the East coast
the United States than we do out west or down south of the United States.
I imagine the coyotes that are up in Nova Scotia are going to be
pretty big to even like even a group of them, like, they still
need to be pretty large animals be going after a movie Soro or cariboos.
I'm sure they're bigger coyotes than we might see in other places. Yeah,
and we're not even going to get into the discussion here of like coyote wolf
hybrids, because that's true. Yeah, yeah, but I mean there are
wolves in that area, and there is some scientific evidence showing that coyotes molve
some times hybridize. But I don't. I mean, it was only forty
two pounds and it was considered big, so like, that's not that big.
I think it's not that big for a wolf, but I think for
a coyote's pretty large, right, and kyries are probably what twenty five pounds?
Yeah, well, I don't know, I'm not Yeah, yes,
I'm just saying that off the top of my head. I have no fucking
idea you're looking it up, I am, actually, Yeah, dude.
It says most adults are about forty eight to sixty inches long from nose to
tail, and way between thirty to fifty pounds. So I guess like these
ones are pretty average for what it's saying on Google from portal dot ct dot
gov. So I let's say ament Connecticut government website. Yep, Yeah,
so they might be a little different depending on where you are. But they're
not huge animals. No, no, definitely not so. Anyways, they
perform knee cropsies on each coyote, and they found that three of the coyotes,
including the first one killed and the last one killed, were linked to
the attack on Taylor by the blood on their fur and quote other forensic evidence,
but they don't specifically say what. Okay. The large male coyote was
also determined to be one of the coyotes photographed earlier on that day Taylor was
killed by Mike and Gale, and those were the two running the direction of
of Taylor. Yeah, of Taylor. Okay, Yeah, so it was
identified by coat markings, but it also contained pellets from when that officer killed
the coyote with a shotgun. Oh, it caught some extras. Yeah,
so this was the coyote that had escaped into the woods that day. Gotcha.
It was also assumed that the other coyote that had been killed but wasn't
directly linked to the attack was part of this pack of coyotes, because that
coyote was found to be related to the large male and the large female ones
that were killed. Ye. Therefore, assuming that the large male and female
were a breeding pair and these other were their offsprings or just like general relatives.
And we've gone over this before. Some people don't believe coyote's pack up,
but they certainly do. I mean yes, depends on where you are.
Again, Yeah, I'm sure we've talked about it before in like wolf
episodes, in probably the Coyote episode two. But like even wolf packs are
just a breeding pair and then other relatives. So like a pack of coyotes
is usually a breeding pair in their offspring, but like the offspring sometimes can
stay for an extra year or two and how them raise their pups next year
or something like that. So that's what really consists of a pack. So
it's just like a family group on a If you look at the worldwide population
to wolves and kind of something you say, in Yellowstone we have like forty
large wolf packs. Like that's just not normal. That's very specific to like
Yellowstone, Yellston. Wolves are like a weird example because it's like a somewhat
manufactured you know what I mean. I feel I'm going to ruffle feathers.
I'm so afraid to talk about wolves. Yeah, they we shipped in from
Canada. Like they it's not their natural area, like they didn't naturally evolve
in Well, this specific lineage of wolves did not evolve in that area.
So this kind of got dropped in and said, hey, good luck.
When I went to Yellstone, I bought a book about like the reintroduction of
that pack into Yellowstone. I need to read it and we should do like
a mini episode or something someday about it. That'd be fun cool. Yeah.
Yeah, So anyways, Taylor's mom eventually released a statement saying, quote,
we take a calculated risk when spending time in nature's fold. It's the
wild life's to reign when the decision has been made to kill a pack of
coyotes. I clearly heard Taylor's voice say, please, don't. This is
their space. She wouldn't have wanted their demise, especially as a result of
her own. But in mid November, just a month after her death or
less than a month, a couple was walking in the park and had a
coyote approach them from behind so closely that one of them could hit it over
the head with a walking stick. Oh shit. Yeah, And just ten
months after Taylor's death, a sixteen year old girl was camping at Broad Cove
in this National Park with her parents and was bitten twice on the head by
a coyote. These things don't give a fuck. Yeah, So I totally
understand Taylor's mom's perspective, and like, I mean, if I was to
be killed by a wild animal, my mom would say the same thing,
like anyone would say the same thing about me, that I wouldn't want the
animals to be killed. But in this circumstance, I get it, because
clearly there's a problem. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah. Now they're all put
to fucking assholes. You gotta kill them to put a blunt leaves? Sure,
yeah, yeah, I mean they're fucking with people, like, yeah,
you can't have them kill another person, like, yeah, take care
of them. Yeah, they'll reproduce anyway. Well yeah, we'll get into
that in a little bit. But in April of twenty ten, Nova Scotia
declared a twenty dollars bounty on coyotes, but not within the park, and
park conservation managers also did not want to call the coyotes in the park,
citing the fact that they could reproduce so quickly that it'd be so hard to
get rid of them. But then They also pointed out that the coyotes who
feared humans would have the same propensity to fear humans as the ones that avoided
being caught and killed, So by natural selection, the ones that survive are
the ones that are already avoiding humans, so you have to kill them,
that was the theory. But then they also were trying to say, like
every coyote that exists has the same propensity to be afraid of people, it's
just whether or not, like you do something about it to like make them
furious, to harass them or whatever, and exactly, so that's kind of
what they were hoping for, like just to more non lethal measurements, so
you didn't have to go out and try to kill every coyote, because as
we know, killing massive amounts of coyotes does not rid yourself of them.
Yep. So park officials ask visitors to just report any coyote encounters, and
they also still ask you to report any negative coyote encounters that you may or
may not have, because the problem is not gone. No. I mean,
it's interesting because the whole problem seems to be that the natural prey that
codes have to go after are just large mammals. So that includes so many
more things into their natural prey source, which would include humans. We're way
smaller than musa caribou, so if they're able to kill them, they're obviously
able to kill us. So like a coyote that lives in the desert somewhere
where there's no large mammals would never think about going after a person because they're
like, fuck no, I've never tried to kill anything over like ten pounds.
So it's wild because it's kind of like the environment itself is what's creating
these coyotes, and it's probably going to continue to happen if you do call
the population great segue into what happened to make these coyotes start to attack and
try to kill and in one case kill a person? Was that close that?
It is like rip all that often? It was close? You really
did? I love it? I love it. So the study, which
I will of course link in the episode description, is titled Severe Environmental Conditions
Create Severe Conflicts. A novel ecological pathway to extreme Coyote attacks on humans and
this article. The scientific article is by Stanley Gert, Eric Muntz, Evan
Wilson, Jason Power, and Seth Newsome. And I would like to shout
out Twitter user at roland K's for tweeting out this study in December of twenty
twenty two and two at mustelid May on Twitter for bringing it to my attention.
So thank you all. Thanks guys, Nick, do you know how
scientific papers are set up? No? So just like basic quick rundown on
how scientific papers work. There's your introduction which gives the background as to like
what you we were trying to study, what other papers or scientific evidence exists
for, like your reasoning to study this, and like your hypothesis, and
then you go into methods, how you conducted the study results, any numbers
that you generate from the study, Like your results are just for simply saying
here's what we found. And then your discussion is like interpreting what you found.
Their methods for the study was that they radio collored twenty three coyotes between
October twenty eleven and November of twenty thirteen, and one of these coyotes was
actually euthanized by park staff after exhibiting aggressive behavior in August twenty twelve, which
actually happened after his caller was removed in July of twenty twelve. Okay,
I just thought that was interesting. Yeah, And then they did a spatial
analysis of where these coyotes were traveling, so like a spatial analysis basically just
taking all of your GPS points from those callers and being like, this is
their habitat and like their range because it's where they've put it on a map
and you say, like, this is this one's territory exactly yep. And
they do have a map in their study article that shows you the range of
the coyotes that they found, so if you want to tick it out.
And then also like that spatial analysis tells you when they were most active,
which is useful yep, because they kind of mentioned it a little bit in
the study where typically coyotes that are trying to avoid people become more nocturnal,
as most animals do, because humans are most active during the day, so
they try to be more active at nine ten if they're able. And then
these are the coyotes in Novascoltia at this National park, right, yes,
like this entire study area was the national park. Cool. So they also
collected whiskers and hair from the radio colored coyotes and also from other coyotes,
including the ones involved in the attack that killed Taylor. Is that just for
a DNA sampling or yes, so they could do what's called like stable isotope
analyses because taking like the hair and the whiskers, you can determine what they
have been eating. Oh cool, Yeah, So they also collected hairs from
roadkill animals that they found the study area, or are carcass like hairs from
carcasses during unrelated small mammal surveys. And then what I thought was super interesting
was that they collected human hair from a local barber shop to get stable isotope
analyzes from local people to compare with the analyzes they were running on the coyotes.
So would that be to see how much trash cars are going into to
see what they're eating the same things we are, I think? So yeah,
ah, this is cool. Yeah, it's really interesting science science bitch.
I'm not going to go into their results because we're going to talk about
their discussion instead, but you can check out their results if you'd like to
look at just the numbers. But in their discussion they state their results and
the biggest finding and the most important one in my opinion, was that coyotes
in this National Park were acting so aggressively towards humans because they had specialized in
hunting and consuming large mammals, and abundance and diversity of prey in the area
was low. They also found that the coyotes in this area showed very little
to no reliance on anthropogenic food sources. What does that mean? That means
they weren't eating human garbage. Oh, that's good. Yeah. So,
like you know, when you and I think of national parks here in America,
it's always like black bears eating trash, and then they're relying on trash,
and that causes issues because the bears want the trash. YEP, I
would like to now read a part of their paper which describes the difference in
the diets between the coyotes, because I think it's important. I will allow
this, Thank you so much. Quote mixing models show that mean contributions of
moose fifty two point five percent and snowshoe hair twenty four point four percent combined
to contribute around seventy seven percent to the diets of these twenty eight individuals.
And I know that I said that they radio collared thirty two but like you
can read it, but like they just are reporting in twenty eight percent.
Did you just say that half of their diet is moose? Yes, holy
shit, still going. But there was significant variation in resource proportions among individuals,
with some consuming real relatively high proportions of deer or small mammals in comparison
to other coyotes. A concurrent study of coyote scats collected in the park during
our field work, and they quote the article power at All twenty nineteen,
it's in their citations, revealed that moose was the most frequent diet item,
with an annual frequency of occurrence of fifty seven percent, with some seasonal winter
spring frequencies exceeding seventy percent of their diet, which are patterns that mirrored the
mean contribution of moose derived from isotope mixing models. Okay, we're gonna break
this down into simple people terms. Yes, throughout the year, fifty percent
of their die is moose. During the spring, seventy five percent of their
die is moose around winter spring, their diets around seventy seven percent moose.
What the fuck? That's crazy? So like that's that's going to be the
moose getting stuck in the snow, just like you said, and maybe calves
and they're born in the springtime too. Yeah, that's a good point.
I didn't think of calves e there, but yeah, that would be really
easy for them, considering they can kill like caribou and adult mood. There's
so many fucking moose in this area. Yeah. So they noted that in
this study area moose were really abundant, but they rarely ever saw tracks or
scap by snowshoe hair or white tailed deer. Huh. And they found that
within the coyotes that they sampled, there was not a lot of prey switching
and their diets largely obviously consisted of moose throughout the year, which is also
really interesting because we've talked about coyotes before. They're omnivores, they're really adaptable,
so they can switch prey types if they have to, but not these
ones. And it's not because they didn't want to, it's because they could
not. There was nothing else there. There was nothing else there. So
they also the researchers assumed that most consumption of moose was from scavenging, but
they did find evidence on moose carcasses that predation did occur. Okay, so
they weren't normally killing them. They were eating dead ones most of the time.
Yeah, and in the study quote at least one carcass located during winter,
coyote tracking showed signs of predation, and on other occasions, live adult
moose were observed with fresh wounds consistent with coyote bites in addition to coyote tracks
leading to the moose. Wow. Yeah, damn. These are just cool
fucking kyries. And I want to know about like the black beard population,
Sarah too. Are they also going after moose at a larger That's a great
question. I don't know. Oh yeah, science more bears. I mean,
I encourage you to reach out to these researchers and say, hey,
could you do this all over again? I will, Yeah, I will
fund it completely. I feel like these bears are gonna be a real problem
one day. We should got ahead of it now. And I would like
to partake on the field research so I can touch the bears and collect the
hair for you, thanks, and then leave right away. So I'd have
to do the actual hard work and get helicoptered in dropped off, touch a
bear and then leave. Why would you have to be helicoptered in. We
could drive there right now. Yeah, but that's such a long drive and
not have to walk into the woods. Like, come on, just a
helicopter in. Based on everything I've heard of this environment, it sounds like
souper convenient to get a helicopter in. Yeah. Perfect, great. Yeah.
So this study is interesting for another reason which also goes against a lot
of what we talk about in this podcast, which is the idea that coyotes
who rely on human food and are habituated to people are the only ones that
can become aggressive towards people, obviously excluding sicka rabbit animals, meaning that,
like, this study goes to show that there are other reasons why coyotes may
be led to attack people, not just because they're habituated to people through like
eating garbage, but that they actually try to predate on people. Fuck.
Yeah. Interesting. So I'm going to quote their study one last time to
sum up what happened here. And also they abbreviate Cape Breton Highlands National Park
to c b HNP, so got it, which I wish I had done
this whole time because it's honestly unmouthful. Got it quote. We suggest that
the unprovoked severe attacks on people in CBHNP are at least partially the result of
prey switching by coyotes that had specialized on a very large prey species in the
absence of alternative, smaller prey and an extreme resource limited environment. Coyotes in
the park are not subjected to hunting or trapping, and without these negative stimuli,
they may not view humans with the fear that typifies the coyote human relationship
elsewhere. Given the size of the moose their primary prey, combined with limited
alternative prey, it seems coyote attacks on humans may be a unique circumstance leading
to attempts at switching to a novel prey. Although rare, this ecological pathway
to carnivore attacks on humans has occurred with other species. The use of stable
isotope ratios demonstrated that the case of the lions of Tsavo, where multiple people
were killed by a pair of lions, was also the result of dietary specialization
on a novel prey during a time of natural prey limitation. I mean,
I kind of nail that just saying you really did. Also, like how
ironic that they've talked about the lines of TSAVO. At the end, they
knew who are audiences. They're trying to, you know, help out the
listens and everything. Sure, yeah, I'm sure that this scientific article was
directly for us, but honestly it was really helpful for us exactly. I'm
not saying it was, but now it is. So Yeah, and they
kind of end by saying, you know, implications for management that although killing
all the coyotes will probably not be very useful, that people who are hiking
in this area should carry a stick or bear spray, and also that the
coyotes should be harassed in like non lethal ways, and that if there is
another national park or just general wildlife area where these circumstances are similar, so
like coyotes eat large prey and don't have a lot of other prey, that
they should really keep an eye on the coyotes there and consider that this could
be an outcome. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's freaky, like not
really something you imagine whatever come after you, Like, we definitely don't worry
about coyotes here, so really anywhere, I don't really I've never really worded
by car He's never only killed one person ever, apparently, So yeah,
in a very specific circumstance. Seriously, Yeah, so was the national park
named after the girl? No? No, sorry, okay, wait,
why would you think that? I don't know when you, I forget what
her name was, and you said Kate something Highlands National Park. So I
was like, is that her? Her name is Taylor Josephine s Stephanie Lucio
or Taylor Mitchell. And I heard Kate something and I was like, oh,
that must be her. No. And also the national park is Cape
Breton Cape Okay, yeah, not Kate. Okay. See now that's why
I was. I was just a little mixed Up're gonna cut all this time?
Anyway? No, No, we're going to keep that, okay if
we can? Alsoph I cut that one. Really stupid that they did name
it after this one. Stupid. She's the only to have a big deal.
It's a very big deal. Why advertise it? Oh? I mean
they do shit like that sometimes, right, Who's they? And also know
that they as in the Canadians. Man, the Canadians name one other national
park in Canada that's named after a person that was killed there. I'm going
through my list of Canadan national parks right now. So it's gonna's mb a
minute because a lot of them. I'm not reaching for my phone to google
any Anyways, it wouldn't be great advertising for a national park to name it
after the one person who's died there. I'm just saying. And also I
feel like it would lead to people trying to get killed. But so they
could have a national park named after them, who would do that? Anyways?
I feel like we have to keep this in now, aw Man,
So do you want to talk about one more study really quickly? Sure?
Yeah, just because we have plenty of time. So I also, around
this time, like December of twenty twenty two, found another scientific article that
was published which is pretty linked to this podcast. And the title of this
article is Suburban cats pay the Price for slinking into Coyote two Territory. Oh
weird. What what's happening to these poor suburban cats that are obviously in everyone's
homes and not outside. Yeah, so there was a community in southern California
that had seventy two cat deaths within eighteen months that they attributed to coyotes.
I feel like it's not that many. Actually, that's a lot. Eighteen
months, seventy two cats is a lot. I mean, I guess.
So anyways, biologists were like huh, and they published a scientific article called
Spatiotemporal Relationships of Coyotes and free ranging domestic cats as Indicators of Conflict in Culver
City, California. I found this study through a Wildlife Society article, so
I'll link to both. But basically, the study took twenty remote wildlife cameras
and set them up between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty for like a six month
period, and took images of where they knew that coyotes would be walking on
wildlife corridors like bike paths and stuff like that. Yep. What they found
was so coyotes mostly used like urban green areas and like more natural areas obviously,
which is not unusual for them. But the surprising part of the study
was actually the behavior of the cats all across Culver City. In eighteen out
of the twenty sites that they studied and like put cameras up, there were
cats. And they said, quote, not only were they present in residential
spaces, but they were also present in green spaces that coyotes were primarily using
as habitat, which was surprising because previous studies of outdoor cats showed that they
generally remain closer to residential areas, like where they fucking lived. Yah,
so it was surprised to find that they were wandering outside of residential areas.
And they also noted that like some of the cats could be just like stray
cats and not owned by anybody. But they did find a lot of cat
pictures of cats with collars. So the research team concluded that managing the coyotes
may not be as effective as the government wants because it's the cat's fault.
Well. Yeah, so, like the biggest find of it was that the
cats were wandering for their way from home than they expected. Yeah. So
they were pointing out, like everyone assumes that coyotes, I don't know,
come in trying to kill these fucking cats, But it's like, actually,
your cat is going to where the coyotes going to them. Yeah, it's
not the coyotes's fault that your cat's an idiot. And also it's your fault
for letting them outside. I Mean, the Culver City is like a part
of LA. So if you lay your cat outside in La, like just
don't expect it back. It's I din't get hit by a car or something
like, it's just just silly. Oh god, I literally like this week
and every other week have a nightmare of my cat getting loose onto a busy
road and your cat would run right back inside. She acts tough the moments
she would step outside like oh fuck no, and the very rare occasions I
like hold her in my arms and walk her outside. She does not really
like it, and so it's a big world out there. I had a
cat that like, we like, let run outside real quick, and it
went out into the woods and came right back in. It's like fuck that
as a cat like didn't want to be held, and it like jumped up
into our arms. I was like, okay, let's go wow. Yeah.
Yeah. That reminds me of the time in college when I had an
apartment. My roommate Hannah. I'm so sorry, Hannah. I know you
listen to this. I've forgiven you. I promise left a window open so
my cat got out. And I had like a summer class and I was
walking towards my apartment and this like little black head poked out from the opposite
side of the house and I was like, that's weird. That looks a
lot like my cat, and like, also, I just want to pet
a cat. So I walked over and I looked and also, my cat
her name is Nimeia, but she only responds to yamo because I actually it's
the only thing I've ever called her. So I looked at her and also
like, she's just a black cat. They all look the same. She
doesn't aware of call her because she's inside all the time. And I looked
at her. I was like yah meo, and she was like wow and
just once again yeah, like doesn't really like to be held, but jumped
into my arms and I was like, thank god she did not run around
Burlington Vermont because I'd never fucking find her. Yeah, so anyways, oh
fuck that. Yeah. So anyways, it's not the coyotes's fault that they
eat your cats, but it is the coyotes's fault in the Cape Breton Highlands
National Park for killing people. Yes, takeaway, But to your point earlier
where you were saying like why would they go around and kill all those other
coyotes and also like these coyotes are killing people and should be killed, I
kind of agree with you that they're specializing in larger prey and when they don't
have that prey, their next thought is to switch to people, which are
pretty available in that area, I'm assuming, so it's really hard to manage
them. And I'm curious to see how the non lethal harassment works out for
them. I means, can't be a bad thing. And if you're telling
people walk in the worse like sticks or pepper spray or something like, it's
gonna be better than being in there with nothing. Yeah. And I mentioned
that those hikers found like that small knife along with Taylor's keys. I guess
Taylor had tried to use that knife to defend herself and it didn't work.
Yeah, apparently not shit. Yeah, so we've covered coyotes before, because
we covered that guy who was attacked by a pack of coyotes in the middle
of the night in Colorado. Yes, and I wonder what the difference was,
you know what I mean, did they ever say how many cays they
think actually were involved in the attack or was it just like they aren't sure
one was killed initially and then four were killed after the fact, so like
probably at least five. Okay, that's fucking crazy. Not sure though,
But I mean the other guy in Colorado, like he was attacked by an
entire pack of coyotes too. Yeah. I mean, but maybe they were
smaller because they were in Colorado and not Nova Scotia. But I don't know.
I do find interesting that the two guys that the couple saw running down
the road, they just walked right past the two people and found an individual
like they like singled her oute literally like like oh we we might not be
able to take two people, we'd take one, so let's go after this
one instead. Yeah. Maybe, And I will say, those pictures of
those coyotes walking taken by like Mike and Gale, they posted them somewhere or
sent them to a university because someone's like a biologist from a university was like,
those coyotes are exhibiting dominant behaviors towards humans, aka, they do not
see people as threats and think that they're above us, like those two coyotes
and like expected you to get out of the way for them. Yeah,
and they did. Yeah, but how scary you took pictures of two coyotes
that walked by you and killed somebody in minutes. That's so it's so wild
And they probably had no idea, like they didn't of course when they left.
Yeah, I've said this before, like when someone screaming is like go
help, this time it's like, I don't know, you just don't expect
it, Like there's nothing that really says it might be a person, like
this might sound like an animal. I'm not as mad about this one as
I was during the grizzon Nights one, you know, and at least they
told people. Yes, true, but yeah, as I was researching this,
I was like, I wonder if Nick's gonna get really angry that they
didn't go back. But yeah, they I mean, you've heard coyotes,
howel I've heard them howl, like sometimes it's like what the fuck is that?
And it does sound like a person. Yeah, it's freaky. And
like again, the people that did go and find her and like tried to
scare away the coyotes, they stuck around it. They helped her out.
Unfortunately didn't work out in the end, but they tried. So it's less
to be angry about, you know, at least thing happened. Yeah,
I'm glad that you feel good about that. Well yeah, except for she's
dead, so not that is terrible. Yeah, of course, Yeah,
and like how weird that she was like a budding famous person and she was
the first person ever killed by Cartes. Like it's I don't know, not
that like you have to be famous for it to be weird that you're killed
by an animal, but like it's not just some random nobody that we've never
heard of, Like no one in the world has ever heard of. Yeah,
Like if I died, no one really be like, oh my god,
that up and coming podcaster. Now, well, okay, if you
were killed by an animal, I think it would be a little ironic that
we have this podcast. It would probably be good for the views, like
we would probably well you would probably get bigger for it. So here's the
thing. If one of us is killed by an animal, let's let's say
you, because that's probably more likely if you were killed by an animal,
would you want me to make one last episode or would you want me to
continue or would you want me to stop this podcast? Well, here's the
thing. We've never done any episodes on the animals I've killed, So why
did they get an episode? And I don't what I mean, Like we've
never gone over hunting stories and stuff. I've gotten animals before, but they
haven't gotten me yet I'm bad in a thousand right now, all right,
I got a one hard percent k KD ratio. So like, I think
it's unfair that they get me one time and I've gotten them multiple times,
and we do an episode saying, oh yeah, look at this they got
nick. Well, first of all, this isn't a hunting podcast. I
know. That's why I've never complained about it. I'm just saying, so
you you would be mad that the one animal that kills you gets a podcast
episode. But we don't talk about the turkeys that you've killed. Correct,
Yes, Also we do talk about the turkeys that you've killed. I forced
us to. Yes, yeah, so which is it? Yeah, you
can never do the episode. That's absolutely, thank you so much. That's
not even a question. Also, if I was to be killed by an
animal, I would want you to make one last episode about it, and
also we would do our best. I wish I could hear it. Yeah,
I was gonna say I wish I could hear whatever episode would because it'd
probably be so bad. Well, yeah, it would be pretty bad,
just in terms of storytelling, not in terms of like you crying. That's
what It's a story fight, not be the main point of the podcast.
Maybe maybe I actually just take it over and just keep going with it.
Yeah, that'd be one hundred percent owner. Yeah, it'd go really well
probably. I mean, we haven't tried for me to do it on my
own without you yet, and I'd rather not, so okay, I'll try
not to get killed then, please do Yeah, thank you so much for
listening to episode forty five of Get Out Alive. If you would like to
see the papers that we talked about or any additional links or anything for this
episode, check out the episode description. You can join us on Patreon at
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offer people free trials oh no shit of subscriptions. Yeah, and maybe people
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but sometimes it's like relevant podcast stuff. I mean, I guess that's
relevant. She tries to attack me, and she's an animal. You like
to throw her outside and just have her make work. Honestly, I know.
Anyway, we're not We're not getting rid of the cat. I can't
support my fond Okay, maybe that's why she's so excited. Fuck off,
I'm kidding your favorite mon adorable, lovable, sweet cat and you're all mad
about it. One of those words is correct, but sure, she loves
your mom. At least you can follow me on Twitter at the Angryologist.
Nick I have no social media. Thank you to my good friend and second
grade husband, Josh Walsh for making her intro music, and to his brother
Jesse Walsh for being our editor and overall music guru. Pretty much, yeah,
and that's it. We will see you in two weeks for a brand
new episode Peace