Information and stories about San Francisco coyotes: behavior & personality, coexistence & outreach, by Janet Kessler: Unveiling first-hand just how savvy, social, sentient and singular coyotes really are!
First there were sirens. Coyotes often respond to fire-engine or ambulance sirens. This older alpha male responded with howls as you hear here.
Then he stopped and listened. This is the part that’s most interesting to me: the listening. His family was responding to him. Notice him cocking and turning his head as he listens intently, trying to catch every meaningful sound in the reply howls of various family members — they are in the far distance, but you actually can hear them in the video.
His family consists of his mate and two of his mate’s yearling offspring. He himself joined the family only a year ago, shortly after the then-alpha-male died.
He was listening for WHO in his family was responding and where they were — each coyote has his own distinctive signature howl that includes a certain voice and pattern — I myself can distinguish some of these, and of course he would be able to discern their locations. Also, though, he was picking up on everything else being conveyed in their vocal responses conveyed by duration, tone, urgency or lack thereof, etc: there’s a lot of information there that we humans have not learned to decipher. Most of it, I believe, is emotional states. After discerning what he wanted to know, he then belted out his own long reply.
I have a whole page on vocalizations if you want to delve deeper: Coyote Voicings.
When he began kicking the dirt — a usually angry reaction — I turned around to see what had prompted him to do that. A walker and his dog had stopped close to me to listen, and the coyote appeared to be reacting negatively to that presence. Coyote often react to dogs and even intrusive photographers in this manner.
When the vocalizations stopped, the dog and owner walked on, and the coyote went in the direction of the howls he had solicited.
I’m reposting this from my Instagram account because it’s important for people to know that a coyote protecting a den area, though indeed this might be scary, does not constitute an “aggressive” coyote.
Neither dog nor owner saw the coyote hidden in the tall grasses — they were just walking along a pathway as usual. But in fact, without knowing it, they were encroaching.
This mother coyote walked slowly up to the dog to message that dog to leave. Notice everything about her: tucked-in tail, hackles (fur on her upper back) up, teeth bared with lips pulled back, wrinkled snarly snout, and direct gaze: this is how she firmly messages her need, and the need is for the dog to go away. It’s a clear communication, telling the dog not to enter or come closer to this area, to turn around and go. In addition, she or her mate may follow you as you leave — she’s basically escorting you out of the area. It’s best to keep going away from her — she’ll soon stop following. But always keep your eye on her — if she comes critically close, you’ll need to firmly scare her away: the best way to do this is to have a small stone (2″) in hand and toss it angrily at her feet, without hitting her ever. You are intimidating her to back off as you do the same thing.
Please don’t read her behavior as aggression or as an attack. You and your dog are the ones coming too close — you, in effect, are provoking her, even though you may have done so unknowingly.
It’s her denning area: coyotes may protect up to about 1/4 of a mile around their actual birthing den. All you have to do is turn and go the other way. Also, make a mental note that this is a denning area and that it might be smart to stay away from it for awhile. Denning signs have been put out at many of the sites — but not all — asking you to stay away. There are plenty of other paths you can take for the next little while. After the dog left, mama coyote lay down on the path, in effect closing off that path from further encroachment for the moment! Pretty spunky coyote!
In a non-urban setting, she would have chosen a more remote area to den in, but in the city there are now few places which remain remote from people and their dogs.
Below is a more intense version of the same thing: It is intense, persistent and insistent — this is what makes it scary to us. But this is NOT an “attack”: note that when coyotes hunt or want to attack, they go in directly without this kind of messaging. Instead, here, the coyote is trying to herd you away from the area and herself. Please, especially during denning season, shorten your leash and walk directly away from a coyote whenever you merely see one. You can eliminate stress for both yourself and the coyote by doing so. I’ve had to watermark these photos so they won’t be used out of context.
And below are two videos showing this behavior of coyotes towards dogs:
Please note that coyotes use their teeth, mouths and body language constantly to communicate, even when playing, as here. This is the equipment they have for such communication.
Sparks, three-year-old, defending the denning areain the Presidio
For those of you who are interested and have followed his story, Sparks, who had recently been living as a loner in and about the Presidio, has succeeded in integrating himself into the established resident family of coyotes there! He is even behaving like the alpha male, so he may have taken Puff’s, the Presidio’s previous alpha male’s, place. I don’t know this for sure yet, but it’s highly likely, judging by his behavior and that I have not seen Puff. If Puff still is around, then Sparks, a three-year-old male outsider, somehow has become accepted as an integral beta family member. I need to see more interactions to know the exact situation — these coyotes have been particularly elusive. I will edit with an update when I find out.
Here is a brief summary of Sparks’ story, with links if you want to dive deeper:
Sparks was one of a litter of five — one female, four males — born in Glen Canyon in 2019. The siblings were particularly tight, and when Sparks had his first arm injury — this was the right arm and probably just a severe sprain — they helped him to safety when dogs appeared closeby. He had a special affectionate bond with his sister, and the two of them together began their first dispersal foray to Golden Gate Heights Park when they were exactly one year old.
Two months later, his sister returned to Glen Canyon where she remained with her birth family, and Sparks appeared in the Presidio which already had an established alpha pair of coyotes. It was not long before I saw him with another leg injury — an actually broken forearm — the left one this time. He left the Presidio on that broken arm and returned to a backyard in Golden Gate Heights, three miles away, where he remained for three weeks until exactly August 14th — that’s when he was last seen there — nursed by a couple of Good Samaritan neighbors. He was now into his seventh month of dispersal.
Left: Wired, the Presidio alpha female for the last 3 years; Right: Puff, the Presidio’s alpha male beginning three years ago who I’m not seeing lately.His absence would mean Sparks is the alpha male.
He reappeared in the Presidio on August 15th, 2020. And then I lost track of him for six months, only to suddenly be surprised by his appearance in North Beach (see above link) a month later in September, when I was updating myself on those resident coyotes. He was now 17 months old and still recovering from the broken left forearm — still limping severely. I’ve always thought that his weakened condition is what helped other coyotes accept him into their fold. For two weeks he stayed with the North Beach family, and I saw a lot of affection and banter between him and Cai2, the (at the time) three-year-old alpha female there, but I never saw him interact with Stumpf, the alpha male. By the way, the Cai2 is the littermate sister of the Presidio’s Puff, born in 2017 in North Beach to the previous North Beach alphas — they are five years old as of this writing.
Sparks’ dispersal in 2020
After this North Beach interlude, Sparks headed back to the Presidio, still with a strong limp, where I have spotted him regularly ever since: this now is his home. At first, I never saw him interact with the resident Presidio family. He seemed to exist around them, and possibly was allowed to stay due to his injured arm — he limped severely for a long time, and even has residues of that limp nowadays — which may have rendered him non-threatening to the resident coyotes. Be that as it may, in January 2021 he was seen being chased out of the Presidio by Puff a number of times — that was the beginning of the breeding season — but Sparks didn’t leave. Wired and Puff, the resident pair, had their second litter that year with Sparks hanging out not far away. That may be when the relationship began changing.
I stopped observing the Presidio coyotes for over a year — there were too many other territories for me to keep up with — but I returned last week, the first week of July, 2022 to update myself on the situation there.
Of highest interest, as stated above, is that Sparks, who is 3.5-years-old now, is acting as though he were the alpha male in the Presidio: defending the den site, babysitting the youngsters of which there are two (apparently there were three but one died, according to the Presidio ecologist), and leading the one family rendezvous that I saw, which included a yearling female and the two pups. Absent from the rendezvous were alpha female/mom Wired, and Puff. There are other yearlings in the Presidio, but they were not involved in this rendezvous. Wired can sometimes be seen sunning herself at the denning site during daylight hours. Is Puff still around? As I said, if he isn’t, Sparks will have taken his place and would be the current alpha male. If he is still around, we’ll know that he was accepted into the family as a beta male to help out by guarding, babysitting, and defending the territory if it ever came to that. But whatever the situation, Sparks is now totally integrated into the situation: this is, somehow, HIS family. Below is a video of the rendezvous of a few days ago:
So the current Presidio family consists of Sparks, Wired, two pups and a yearling daughter. There’s also another male who I call “LowKey” who has come into the denning area, but hangs out more on the periphery: I don’t know his position in the family yet. And there are a number of yearlings who may still be using the Presidio as their base, but don’t hang around the den site.
Two pups born this year (left and middle) and a female yearling (right), all are Wired’s offspring. The yearling would have been fathered by Puff, but what about the two pups?
[press on any of the images to enlarge it and scroll through each row]
Left: Sparks is acting like the alpha male as he guards the area. Center: Wired has been and continues to be mom — she’s on her third litter since moving into the Presidio and becoming the alpha female thre. Right: This fella who I call “LowKey” hangs out on the outskirts of the denning area, he’s at least two years old and is somehow also associated with the denning family.In some ways, he looks like Sparks, and may be genetically related.
The territories I’ve mapped here in San Francisco — just under 20 of them — have all encompassed large parks, or fragments of various smaller parks. You can see the map and read about my methods here. These territory sizes and configurations have, with minor exceptions, remained incredibly stable, some for 20 years from the time coyotes first re-appeared here in San Francisco in 2002, and some newer ones I became aware of in 2014, since that time.
Each territory has always harboured one family: mom, dad, possibly one or two yearlings born within the previous two years, and any pups born within the year (always in March/April). All except the alpha parents eventually disperse so that the territory remains in control of just one breeding parent pair, the same pair usually, over many years. Eventually, absolute newcomers or even offspring of these territorial parents, have taken over the territories no longer defendable by the aging alphas, who also may just pick up and leave — in either case, the territory remains in the hands of one mated pair of coyotes and eventually their offspring. There have been minor variations to this prototype, such as a family of three siblings who remained on a territory after their parents disappeared.
This, with just a few deviations, is the standard I’ve been seeing as long as I’ve been documenting them. However, more recently, over the last couple of years, I’ve seen some bigger variations pop up.
For example, in three of the territories during the last two years, not only the alpha female, but also a much younger two-year-old female — a daughter of the alpha female in one case, and likely the same situation in the others — both produced offspring, apparently sired by the same alpha male. I don’t know if this is a trend, an anomaly, or a simple standard variation that only now is occurring.
Another change: an entrenched family spatially expanded their territory up to and onto the border of another, so that actually two standard coyote families are now denning in the same large park, although in separate and exclusive territories — 1/5th of a mile apart — and both families had pups.
Another example occurred three years ago when a yearling male dispersed from Glen Canyon into a border of the Presidio and made this his permanent home. He was recovering from a broken arm when he first moved there, and possibly that’s why the resident coyote pair allowed him to stay there. Now he appears to be an integral, though non-related — member of the family. He has either moved into the alpha male position, or he simply helps guard and babysit the new litter, and is there for them at their evening rendezvous when the parent/s are not.
So these examples point to closer-than-seen-before living quarters for the coyotes. Is this because the territorial market is saturated? Sounds oddly familiar, doesn’t it?? A couple of years ago I saw a temporary reconfiguration of three separate family territories into just one owned by one of the three families for over a year. The other families had members die or simply disappeared from my radar possibly from old age, but now, again, it is divided into three separate territories and owned by three separate families.
And here’s more. Until recently, with the exception of a few dispersing youngsters who’ve never hung around for long, the coyotes I’ve seen in the neighborhoods have been those that owned the adjacent or nearby parks, be they large parks or a series of fragmented parks. But now I’m seeing that this is not always the case, whereby more coyotes over the last few years have been carving out territories in the interstices between the fairly stable park-centered territories. These have sprung up within our residential neighborhoods, especially those with plenty of small garden plots or small plots of denser shrubbery, or with a large lawn nearby such as Dolores Park, or barren hills such as Hawk Hill and Turtle Hill. When you see a coyote — and it’s always the same coyote — trekking regularly on the same peripheral route daily, or twice daily, for more than a couple of months, it’s probably an indication that they are claiming/defining the territory.
An example of a fairly newly carved territory involves the small, young female coyote depicted below. She does not “return” to any of the territorial parks I’ve mapped, and anyway she doesn’t belong to the families in those parks. I don’t know where she came from — I’m not able to keep up with all dispersals and origins. Her main area encompasses a handful of square blocks, some with and some without abundant street plantings to help conceal her. She covers this terrain twice a day — sometimes more often — stopping routinely at her known food sources, marking along the way, and taking in who is around (in terms of people, dogs, wildlife) and what is happening: she’s been doing this for at least three months that I have seen and possibly, from what I’ve hear, for almost a year. I and others have spotted her as far away from this main area as a mile, which would encompass a large enough space to be a territory.
Intermittently a larger male coyote has been seen alone and even apparently with her in the same area. I thought he was a dispersing youngster, but if others have seen him around, then maybe a relationship is brewing?? Be that as it may, she did not produce pups this year. Maybe this male is a suitor who will be moving in?? I’ve added his photos at the bottom.
The two photos below are of her occasional male friend.
Three years ago a rancher had some issues with a coyote raiding lambs. A few weeks earlier someone had hunted with Staghounds and got 2 male coyote.
Bereft of supporting pack the female had pups. It was a very dry, poor area. Sheep had grazed the land to short grass, so rodents were minimal. Likely she had little choice to supply a litter of pups alone. So took what was available. Lambs.
Unfortunately she was hunted and the rancher was told she was lactating. He felt very upset thinking of pups starving so set out den scouting. After 5 hours..his dogs found 2 pups in a den.
Lassie and Lobolito were female and male and about 2 weeks. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy them…so he put them in with a week old litter of border collies he had.
They were fully adopted by the mother and 6 other ranch collies. He minimized his contact with them and since he owns 7,000 acres allowed them to start ranging and becoming independent. By 4 months they were living in some woods near ranch. He gave them vaccines and let them become gradually wild.
Lobolito the male by 4 months went independent and scorned anything to do with ranch. Lassie..however…continued visiting the dogs.
She grew up…wild to all humans except the Rancher and rejects dogs…except his border collies. She “owns” the ranch property but also rejects..other coyote! Now 3, past 2 years she has courted an older collie in January and February. He won’t let them breed because he wisely doesn’t want border collie x coyote crosses all over. Too smart!
Lassie knows his horse and the dogs and will come down to visit when they are out. [One of the dogs actually grooms and tends to her when they visit!]
She chases out ANY coyote very aggressively. She does not bother livestock and there are songbirds now in great number because she clears area of feral cats.
This spring he has border collie pups, and Lassie has several times come in and regurgitated piles of voles and mice to collie litter. Her “sister” is the mother. We suppose Lassie is being a good auntie.
Just another example that coyote are extremely variable. He competes in sheepdog trials and jokes of bringing Lassie in for competition.
About My Site and Me: This website reflects my 16 years of intense, careful, and dedicated field-work — empirical observations — all photo-documented without interfering or changing coyotes’ behaviors. Be welcome here, enjoy, and learn!
Coyotes reappeared in San Francisco in 2002 after many years of absence, and people are still in the dark about them. This site is to help bring light to their behavior and offer simple guidelines for easy coexistence.
My information comes from my own first-hand observations of our very own coyotes here in San Francisco. They have not been studied or observed so thoroughly by anyone else. Mine is not generic information, nor second-hand.
Note that none of the coyotes I document and photograph is “anonymous” to me: I know (or knew) each one of them, and can tell you about their personalities, histories, and their family situations. There have been over 100 of them, distributed among over twenty families, all in San Francisco. Images and true stories have the power to raise awareness and change perspective.
Coyote Yipps 
