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A camper who was biking through Cape Breton Highlands National Park last week says his 15-second encounter with an aggressive coyote that bit him doesn’t define the mostly “peaceful experience” he had on the Cabot Trail.<\/p>\n
Alex Radu of Ontario said he was stopped at the MacIntosh Brook campsite last week taking in views of the moon when the coyote appeared “out of nowhere.”<\/p>\n
“In the dark, I could barely see it. But it came right at me,” Radu said in an interview with CBC News. <\/p>\n
“And I did what you’re supposed to do. I got big. I tried to get aggressive. I stomped. I yelled and it backed off a couple of metres and came back and we went through that dance a couple of times.”<\/p>\n
Radu said when it became clear the coyote kept getting closer and started snapping at him, he decided to bolt, “which I know is what you’re not supposed to do, but at that point, it didn’t feel like I had many other options left.”<\/p>\n
“I didn’t have any food on me, but I ran to the closest building about 50 metres away at MacIntosh Brook, got inside to safety,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The coyote was no longer with me, so at some point he gave up or lost interest.”<\/p>\n
But a few moments later, he noticed that his pant leg was shredded and he found bite marks on his leg.<\/p>\n
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Alex Radu said he didn’t realize he had been bitten until he was safely sheltered from the coyote. (CBC)<\/p>\n
“Relatively minor wounds, but they were bleeding and they needed some treatment,” Radu said, adding he couldn’t say when in their interaction the bite happened. <\/p>\n
Radu said it had been so dark the night of the attack, it took him a while to process what was happening.<\/p>\n
“I felt a lot of fear. I felt I was flooded with adrenalin and I was just playing out all the different ways this could potentially go in my head as I was doing it,” he said.<\/p>\n
Radu said he reported the incident to park staff the next morning and got help at a nearby health centre.<\/p>\n
“They helped me clean up the wound. They helped me bandage it and they gave me the first dose of a rabies vaccine, which we’re doing as a precautionary thing,” Radu said.<\/p>\n