Aspiring folk singer, Taylor Mitchell, 19, was killed by a pack of coyotes in Cape Breton Highlands National Park on Tuesday afternoon shortly after the beginning of the Skyline Trail.

According to Chip Bird, the Parks Canada field unit superintendent for Cape Breton, hikers say the coyotes attack Mitchell and called 911. She was airlifted to a hospital in Halifax where she died about 12 hours later.

Mitchell was recently nominated for Young Performer of the Year honors by Canadian Folk Music Awards. She was touring the Maritime provinces and had a break between gigs to go hiking Tuesday, her manager, Lisa Weitz, said in an e-mail.

The area where the attack occurred is popular and well traveled. It remained closed, and park authorities had shot one coyote believed to be involved. A pathologist will test the animal’s body for diseases that might have triggered the attack.

Bird said no other coyote attacks had ever occurred in the park. “We’ve had coyotes approach people too closely,” he said, and about six years ago one nipped a person.

That animal was killed because of “lack of fear,” he said.

Coyote attacks on humans are extremely rare, said Michael O’Brien, wildlife manager of furbearers and upland game for Nova Scotia.

It is “not expected or normal behavior,” he said, although he said there had been aggressive incidents in Nova Scotia before, but no deaths.

Illness, injury and familiarity with humans can affect an animal’s behavior, he said.