Calgary mother attacked by coyote warns neighbours to be on alert

CALGARY – Three people are believed to have been attacked by the same coyote in separate instances in the city’s northwest, and one of the canine’s victims is warning people in the area to watch out for the aggressive animal.

All of the incidents happened in Nolan Hill with the latest attack happening on Saturday when a woman in her 60s was taken to hospital.

Nicole Au was also attacked by the animal on June 11.

Au was pushing her daughter on her bike on their driveway when she felt the coyote behind her latch on to her upper thigh.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she recalled, adding that she tried to shake the coyote off.

“It just kept digging in deeper and deeper. It would not let go. It happened so fast.”

She says eventually got the animal to detach from her leg and scare him off, but was left with six wounds.

Her husband rushed her to the hospital where spent the night in the ER and needed treatment to prevent rabies from developing.

She says usually the family goes on a walk after dinner, but she’s been scared off from doing that after the attack and is nervous to even go outside.

As far as prevent further attacks, she says she and the neighbourhood have been reporting sightings and attach to the city but that the city’s response has been lacking.

“What we get back [from 311] is always just, ‘Don’t provoke them, don’t approach them, keep your distance,'” she said.

She says there are a lot of families with young kids and pets and she’s concerned that coyotes could attack more people.

“Keep watch. Protect your children, protect your pets,” she said, adding now when she and her family go out, they bring sticks and baseball bats in case a coyote approaches again.

“We’re not letting the children away from our sight at all–not even out of our reach anymore. We’re always on high alert.”

She says animal control trucks were out in the community recently and she was told that they were looking for about 10 canines.

-with files from Henna Saeed