Fishermen rescue woman forced to fight wild coyote off with a stick

A woman was rescued from a beach in Massachusetts by a pair of fisherman after she was stalked by an aggressive coyote.

The woman, Marcy Sterlis, managed to keep the animal at bay by swinging a large stick at it for 10 minutes.

Ms Sterlis was visiting Race Point Beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts when she spotted the coyote.

“I sat down to put my sneakers back on and as I was getting up, I look over and this coyote was four or five feet from me,” Ms Sterlis told Boston 25, a local broadcaster.

A pair of fishermen, William Kelley and Andrew DeCarton, heard Ms Sterlis crying for help, saying “he won't leave me alone” as the coyote circled her. Mr DeCarton recorded the incident as the fishermen approached the beach.

The coyote circled the woman for approximately 10 minutes, undeterred by her yelling and stick swinging.

Once the boat was close to the shore, Mr Kelley used an oar to slap the side of the ship, making a loud noise that sacred the coyote away. The fishermen then picked up Ms Sterlis and checked to see if she had been bitten by the animal.

After the woman was safely aboard, the fishermen took her back to her car.

She praised the fishermen for hearing her cries and coming to her aid.

“Major props to these guys for hearing my screams and responding – this coyote was relentless, and I don’t know what I would have done without them,” she wrote in a Facebook post about the incident.

Ms Sterlis was not deterred from beaches due to the incident; later that day she spent her afternoon at Meadow Beach.

Coyotes are typically timid and skittish creatures, generally relying on the safety of their pack and often running at the sight of humans.

However, as coyotes have moved into more populated areas, researches believe they have in some cases become habituated to humans, which may make them less timid about approaching people.

Typically coyotes tend to target pets, not humans. But attacks, though rare, do happen. There are only two known fatal attacks on humans by coyotes.