Child's Evening Frolic on Cape Cod Beach Ends With Coyote Bite

Luckily, animal didn't have rabies; child said to be recovering from non-life-threatening injuries
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 14, 2021 7:00 AM CDT
Coyote Bites Child on Cape Cod Beach
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/jamesvancouver)

A child's visit to a Provincetown beach turned ugly on Wednesday evening. A coyote bit the unidentified youngster at North Herring Cove Beach, part of the Cape Cod National Seashore, around 8:30pm, sending the child to Cape Cod Hospital with what the National Park Service says were non-life-threatening injuries, reports CBS Boston. An NPS release notes that park rangers killed the coyote, and that on Thursday they found its body in vegetation within the dunes (they'd already assumed the coyote had died, based on all the blood they found after they'd shot it and it fled).

In a Facebook update on Friday, the Cape Cod National Seashore reported the coyote had tested negative for rabies. CBS notes this isn't an isolated case of a coyote in the area: A couple of weeks ago, a woman was chased by a coyote on another Provincetown beach and had to fight it off with a stick until a pair of local fishermen came to her rescue. The NPS release notes that park rangers have dealt over the summer with multiple incidents of coyotes "acting assertively toward people in attempts to obtain food." That's why, the NPS warns, people shouldn't feed or otherwise attract wildlife, as animals will then become acclimated to humans (read: not fearful), leading to the animals behaving "unpredictably and aggressively, resulting in injuries to people and a sad ending for the habituated animal." (More coyote stories.)

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