Hunter mistaken for turkey by coyote

A coyote mistook an Edmunds hunter for a turkey on April 30, the first day of Maine's turkey hunting season, and sent him to the hospital for several bite wounds.
Bill Robinson, 39, had been kneeling behind a very thick 5-foot spruce tree and was using a mouth call to lure turkeys when the coyote sprang over the tree, "came in high" and bit his upper right arm.
"We couldn't see each other, and he thought I was a turkey," says Robinson, who was hunting early in the morning in Berry Township. "Something caught my right eye, and all I could see was a mouth full of teeth coming at me. He had leaped and bit whatever he could grab."
"I instantly got to my feet so I'd be better off defending myself," recalls Robinson, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 200 pounds. "But the coyote bolted in the opposite direction."
"If I had been sitting six or eight inches from there, he could have got me by the neck," adds Robinson, who says he was wearing a thick coat, sweatshirt, long-sleeved button shirt and a T-shirt.
"I picked up my gun, which is meant for turkeys, but I wanted to send the coyote a message, so I shot at him. He was hit by a few pellets and turned to look."
A registered Maine guide, Robinson believes the coyote was a male, because of its size. "It weighed about 50 pounds."
The incident took place at 5:10 a.m., and Robinson walked the eighth of a mile back to his truck and drove to Maine Game Warden Joseph Gardner's house. "I showed him the wound, and he told me to go to the ER in Machias."
"He was quite shook up when he showed up here," recalls Gardner. "I looked him over, and the chances were about zero that the coyote had rabies, but, because we don't have a carcass, you can't take any chances."
The hunter is undergoing a two-week regime of anti-rabies shots but agrees with the game warden that the animal was probably not ill. "He looked perfectly healthy to me," says Robinson. "I'm not advocating a witch hunt on coyotes, and I don't have any advice for other hunters. It was a freak accident."
"I was as surprised as he was," adds Gardner, who has been a Maine game warden for 18 years. "The coyote was just doing what coyotes do. There isn't any reason to be alarmed."