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Obituaries
Aspiring folk musician killed by coyotes
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 29 October 2009
An aspiring Canadian folk musician from Toronto has died in unusual circumstances, seemingly after being attacked by two coyotes while hiking in a national park.
Taylor Mitchell, who self-released her album ‘For Your Consideration’ in March, and who subsequently appeared at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, was hiking alone at the Cape Breton Park in Nova Scotia. It is unclear how the coyote attack occurred – the animals very rarely attack humans – but rangers were alerted by other walkers who heard the singer’s screams. Bleeding heavily from bite wounds, she was airlifted to Halifax hospital but died from her injuries yesterday.
The rangers saw both coyotes, and shot one of them. A spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told Reuters “coyotes are normally afraid of humans, this is a very irregular occurrence”, while adding that the animals seemed “extremely aggressive” to the rangers when they arrived at the scene.
Lisa Weitz, Mitchell’s manager, told the Associated Press last night: “Words can’t begin to express the sadness and tragedy of losing such a sweet, compassionate, vibrant, and phenomenally talented young woman. She just turned nineteen two months ago, and was so excited about the future”.
Mitchell, who was mid-way through a tour of her home region, had only recently been nominated for Young Performer Of The Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards.
