Rest in peace, Ms. Mitchell.

She was not sleeping, drunk, stoned, wounded, tired, or otherwise incapacitated – she was right at the very beginning of a hike, and was an experienced hiker so she wasn’t even “exhausted” by just 5 minutes of walking.

I’m aware that most of the commenters suggesting this probably weren’t aware of those details, but when you are, the suggestions do sound a bit offensive to the poor woman.

The more details you find out, the more it sounds like “really messed up coyotes”. The trackers the parks dept. called in thought the coyotes involved were young, not even old and decrepit like you get with man-eating large carnivores (but possibly adolescent or otherwise “too young to know any better”).

My money’s on rabies, one-or-more coydogs, previously injured and thus willing to take “easy game” even if it’s freaky like humans are, or otherwise “nonstandard” coyotes.

http://www.bookofodds.com/Accidents-Death/Death-Rates/Odds/The-odds-a-person-will-die-from-being-bitten-or-struck-by-an-alligator-in-a-year-are-1-in-149-700-000-US-2006

http://www.bookofodds.com/Accidents-Death/Death-Rates/Odds/The-odds-a-person-will-die-from-being-bitten-by-a-rat-in-a-year-are-1-in-299-400-000-US-2006

Back in ’97, the Bay Area was walloped by El Nino rains. Lots of extra vegetation, lots of happy vegetarian critters, and a mini population boom in coyotes. There were a few reports of young ones threatening people. Speculation at the time was that they were young and stupid ones who hadn’t been properly raised by mom & dad.

I saw a couple of coyotes in a suburban hayfield — hemmed in by office parks, a housing development, and a shopping center — last week. They ran as soon as they saw me and my dog. We chased after them, so they’d Get The Idea. When they had enough of ducking behind hedges they squeezed under a fence into an abandoned, overgrown farmyard and disappeared. What was surprising was the size of one of them. Most coyotes around here are kind of like XL foxes; this guy was Border collie sized. I wonder if he might have been a coydog. My belgian sheepdog could probably have beaten the snot out of the little one, but not this guy.

Talking about eastern timber wolves, a buddy of mine’s uncle out in the woods of NH used to raise them. If you have ever seen a 300lb+ wolf up close, you will not easily forget it. Like something out of Princess Mononoke, for real. Five feet tall at the top of the ears. He called that one ‘Myth’. I’m 6’7″ and not normally afraid of dogs, even big angry ones, but that was something else entirely. Fucking primal. It’s hard to quantify, but it was immediately clear that this was NOT a dog.

Of course you know there’s just gonna be more and more wolf/coyote/dog hybrids in the future. The warg of the future will be a coyote/wolf/rottweiler/pit bull cross breed, 150 lbs of fearless, scavenging, pack hunting mean, though I imagine the viciousness and fearlessness will largely depend on how often people kill them on sight.

Carry a fucking weapon, people. We didn’t evolve opposable thumbs for nuthin. A can of mace, easy-opening folding knife, collapsable baton, or walking staff could have saved her life, for real, and would even be suitable for the east coast’s black bear (not that they attack except when rabid or provoked, even when hungry). Wouldn’t want anything less than a large caliber handgun against a grizzly, or maybe a sturdy spear or two-handed sword (if you know how to use one), but you have a fighting chance even with just a big sturdy stick. Most predators will think twice after a good swat in the nose. As a rule, they don’t like being attacked, it’s really disruptive to their game plan. You just gotta respect what’s theirs and demand respect for what’s yours and usually you’re fine. Problem is most people are completely fucking oblivious, they’d walk right between a mother bear and her cubs and never even notice.

Seriously, though–what could entice coyotes, whose primary prey is small animals like rodents, to attack a *human*? This is more than just a little fishy.

Regardless, though, DO NOT GO HIKING ALONE. Having grown up in the woods, I can definitively say that the most valuable lesson I ever learned was to never go off alone. ANYthing can happen to you, and if there isn’t someone with you to go for help or assist you in getting back out of the woods, your ass is in for a real treat.

Any doctors or biologists around?

And yeah… rabies is as bad as having somebody tweeked out on meth… you kinda’ have to take out their brain stem to get em’ to stop…

Hearing that they had the gumption to attack a human is puzzling. Coyotes usually do everything they can to avoid being seen by humans.

All together now:

Don’t feed suburban coyotes. Most of the attacks I read about were on kids by coyotes who’d been fed by humans.

Don’t make it easy for them to forage by leaving out pet food, or cats, or small dogs.

If any critter approaches you, make yourself look big, shout, and throw things.

Coyotes aren’t foxes. They are canis not vulpes ! They DO eat things other than rodents and small birds. They are opportunistic hunters. They will kill small livestock like sheep and goats and I have personally seen them eating the carcass of a freshly killed yearling deer.

While they are generally wary of people, they are still wild animals that can get to the 40-50 pound range (as big as a pit bull) easily. Combine that with the fact that they are the de facto apex predator in suburban areas and you shouldn’t be surprised to see a decrease in wariness and an increase in attacks.

I’m not terribly surprised that a 100 lb girl could be killed by 2 aggressive coyotes.

No wild animal is harmless. Respect them accordingly.

It’s terrible if this is what pseudo-domestication does to them, which I guess is plausible, but I almost wonder if there wasn’t some weird disease at work affecting their normal behavior patterns. Like the man said, as common as they are even in suburbia these days, you’d usually have to work hard to even lay eyes on one.