19-year-old folk singer Taylor Mitchell was killed by coyotes while hiking alone in a national park.This makes me sad, and I can't really explain why, it's not like I'm a big fan of Canadian folk music -- the late Ms Mitchell now makes the total count of artists I can name up to one.
Maybe it's just sad that a someone who had so much to look forward to should have died so needlessly. Don't get me wrong, it's not like it's any sadder than dying in a car accident, or from illness, or in a bizarre gardening accident, or any number of other ways, but this in particular just seems so pointless.
It could be the freak nature of the attack. At first when I read it I confused coyotes -- which are essentially jackals -- with cougars, which are also known as pumas. I remember hiking in the the Arches national park in Utah's Moab desert, and being warned of the risk of being attacked by cougars -- the risk was high for lone hikers, along with children who wander off or joggers in some areas.
But then when I read the story properly I realised it said coyote and not cougar, an it seemed all the more senseless that an animal that normally preys on hares should have attacked a person. Attacked and killed.
Some people might say she was foolish, I don't know the details but it was possible that it was unsafe and she shouldn't have been hiking alone at that time of day. But that's no comfort to anyone. You can't blame the animals, of course. They're wild animals, acting on instinct and not out of any malicious intent -- they didn't do anything "wrong", only what they know.
For years, I've joked about wild animals eating joggers and how we should introduce large predators into towns to control anti-social behaviour. Suddenly it doesn't seem so funny.
