Severe environmental conditions create severe conflicts? A novel ecological pathway to extreme coyote attacks on humans

1) Identifying the circumstances and causes of carnivore attacks on humans is important for prevention of future incidents as well as employing effective wildlife management strategies. Cape Breton Highlands National Park (CBHNP) in Nova Scotia has experienced multiple attacks by coyotes (Canis latrans) on humans, including a fatal attack on an adult in 2009.
2) Here we use a combination of data on space use and diet collected from 2011–2013 to reveal that limited resources and a reliance on a large ungulate (moose, Alces americanus) as the mechanism leading to aggression by coyotes in CBHNP.
3) Resident coyotes exhibited large home range sizes (mean=77.5 km2) indicative of limited resources and spatiotemporal avoidance of human activity. Carbon (d13C) and nitrogen (d15N) isotope values of sub-sampled coyote whiskers (n=32), which provide a longitudinal record of diet over the months before collection, revealed little intra- and inter-individual variation with nearly all individuals spe...