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!
Some of you received a calendar I put together of coyote family life at the end of last year. This exhibit is extracted from that calendar so that more people would have an opportunity to peek into the family life of coyotes.
As many of you know, fathers are important in coyote families: in fact, both parents raise the young, which is unusual in the mammal world. This exhibit mostly displays the helter skelter fun and games between fathers and pups. This behavior is not something seen by most people, the reason being, not only that coyotes are highly secretive, especially with their pups, but most of their activity occurs at night when we aren’t around to see it and when it’s too dark to see it.
The point I want to make is that coyotes are hugely wrapped up in their own family lives. Any of our or our dogs’ interactions with them are peripheral to their family life and are only likely to occur if we impinge on their families and themselves in some way, including through territorial intrusions. The only way to avoid coyote/dog interactions in the city is to stay away from them and walk away the minute you see them. Please note that the display opens around the 20th of February, and I’ll give a general talk on February 24th at noon in the Randall Museum theater. See: https://randallmuseum.org/
This series of photos shows Mom on the right letting Dad on the left know what she feels about what he’s doing. One of their youngsters is there, in the middle, looking on, and obviously anxious about how their “conversation” is going. Coyotes communicate constantly through eye-to-eye contact, facial expressions and body language. They are always aware of each other’s moods and intentions, and most of their communication is silent like this, though sometimes these might include quieter grunts and growls.
Top row: Dad had been lazily relaxing in the aftermath of a rain, when Mom approaches from the right. He’s taking it in stride, with his ears pulled back and focused eye-contact which shows he’s really listening. Notice how intently pup, in the middle, listens to it all and is upset about it’s intensity as shown by the anxiety in his face. He shows his nervousness by licking his lips.
Middle row left, pup is kept quiet and out of the conversation — or maybe even calmed down — by Mom who grabs his snout: this is usually a disciplinary move and reasserts her status and will over his. At this point, pup steps back but continues to be totally focused and absorbed in his parent’s “conversation”.
Bottom row: On the left is when they become aware of me: “Oh, hi over there!” But they’ve come to know me as a benign fixture in the distance, so their conversation resumes. It appears that Mom wanted Dad to get moving because she beckons him to follow and leads him away. Dad complies, and pup trotted along in back of them.
Another conversation that might interest you is this one: Coyote Conversation: An Example. These communications are very directed in their messages: they have a specific intent and planned outcome by the coyote delivering the message, and the message is understood absolutely by the recipient.
Besides eye-to-eye contact and all sorts of body language including physical arm pokes, coyotes also use smells to communicate: this is a whole different channel of communication that we “mere” humans do not have access to except in academic studies. In fact, in our terms, coyotes almost “see” with their noses. They produce and detect pheromones which convey all sorts of specific information, including territorial boundaries through urine scent marking, the presence of outsider coyotes including their meekness or boldness, reproductive status and gender, they can identify specific coyotes who have passed by even days beforehand, and they can smell injuries in each other. And, of course, much more.
In this photo here, it’s interesting to see how a parental communication to one youngster so thoroughly affects an onlooker pup. They, of course, can identify with the situation they are watching.
Traditionally, ecologists study diet either by directly observing what animals are eating, or by dissecting animal scat and looking for prey remains. However, these methods have some challenges and limitations. For one, it takes a lot of time and effort to observe wild animals, and though we may be able to observe them foraging, it can be hard to see everything they eat and estimate the relative amounts of different foods consumed by different individuals. Regarding dissection, this method relies on there being undigested parts in the scat left behind – for example fur or bones which are used to identify the species consumed. However, in cities, animals have access to a lot of foods that may not leave anything visual behind in the scat for us to identify. For example, a chicken nugget won’t leave any chicken bones or feathers behind! However, it will leave some chicken DNA behind. This is where a more recent technology for studying diet, known as DNA metabarcoding, is very useful. This method allows scientists to quantify and characterize the diet of animals by first amplifying the DNA present in the scat and then identifying which species that DNA belongs to.
As part of my dissertation research for my PhD in ecology at UC Davis, I am using DNA metabarcoding to identify the species that coyotes in San Francisco consume, estimate which food items are the most frequently eaten, and consider how the diets of coyotes differ depending on where in the city they live. I’m still completing my data analysis, but I have some tidbits to share!
First, coyotes in San Francisco eat a lot of food provided by people, such as domestic chicken and pig – this could be coming from pet foods, garbage, or meat people intentionally put out for coyotes. As Janet has described in her blog many times, this isn’t good. Not only can these foods lack the nutritional content that coyotes need to thrive, but the presence of these foods brings coyotes into closer contact with people, which can lead to interactions between people and coyotes that are undesirable. Securing garbage, not leaving out attractants like fallen fruit and pet food, and making sure to never feed wildlife help decrease the quantity of these foods in coyote diets.
Second, coyotes in San Francisco eat a lot of pocket gophers—they are experts at hunting gophers, which are present throughout most of the city. Other frequently consumed natural prey includes raccoons, voles, and rats.
Finally, although coyotes in San Francisco do eat domestic cats, it’s not as common as many people think: I’m only detecting cats in <5% of the scats I’ve collected. Still, from the standpoint of cat welfare, it’s always a good idea to keep pet cats indoors. Not only does this keep your cats safer, but it protects wildlife and is better for human health and the environment. More to come!
It’s a good time to bring what Wildlife Services does into everyone’s consciousness if it isn’t there already.
A new fence has gone up in Southern Oregon with this sign on it, warning of animal capture devices. The devices are snares and traps meant to capture wolves, foxes, bears, bobcats, coyotes, etc. A rancher that has experienced losses from any suspected predator can request federal assistance or solutions. By partnering with the feds, it is the government that sanctions and maintains the traps, and the federal government that does the killings.
In other words, you and I are paying taxes so that our government can set tortuous traps and snares, causing horrendous deaths to our wildlife. Any canine trapped or snared is legal. Coyote, wolves, dogs. Of course, dogs shouldn’t be roaming alone on sheep or cattle ranches. And ironically . . . they are caught the most. Last year this very fence sector caught 6 coyotes and 15 dogs. And of the coyotes, they were probably attracted to the tall grasses under the fence where rodents a plenty can be found — few are after sheep.
IN ADDITION, you cannot interfere with any canid caught: that would be a federal crime. Can you imagine what it might be like to come across a snared dog or coyote and not be able to help it?
This type of *predator control* is both *law* AND *culture* in these western areas, so it’s almost impossible to voice the wrong of it without dire consequences from the landowners. It’s not only the sheep and cattle industry that’s involved, but also the very powerful and politically connected livestock associations and communities. It’s almost a religion: most people simply cannot conceive of any anti-predator feelings, especially since wolves are growing in numbers. If wolves kill livestock or dogs, the persecution ripples to all predators. So it’s not just the government laws that need to be addressed and changed, but an entire culture that needs to be infiltrated and supplanted with ideas and policies that are all-embracing rather than exclusive to the interests of ranching.
Shouldn’t our government be PROTECTING our wildlife against exploitation and moneyed business interests? As it stands now, ranching and farming as industries are subsidized by our taxes. Maybe our subsidies should be made contingent on a change. Non-lethal methods of limiting predators on ranches have been tested and they work.
You all know from this blog and my Instagram account that coyotes are not *vermin*. They are highly sentient, and some of the most intelligent and feeling of animals. They are extremely social and family minded. They deserve our respect, not our hatred. Please become aware of the situation, and please add your voice to their defense. Our public outcry should be resounding: let’s make it louder in 2024. Happy New Year.
This morning the sirens began blaring, and Mama coyote began howling back at them. This type of response to sirens is an everyday occurrence with coyotes. Two of her 8-month-old male youngsters were close by. Youngsters are always happy to see Mom, and they are energized by anything she does, often taking their cue from her. They both ran excitedly in her direction after hearing her, but only one of them joined in the howling. The howling continued for a few moments as a duet and then petered out slowly before it stopped entirely.
Two pups are drawn to Mom’s howling, and one joins the chorus
I love watching these interactions which show the warp and woof of an interactive family life. And there were other interactions to be seen if you looked hard enough through the tall grasses which screened what was happening, but I was able to focus enough between those tall grass leaves to pick up a little of it.
Mom normally lets the pups do what they have to do to get along, and she stays out of their interactions. That is, unless and until they get too close to her. As they’ve gotten older, she’s become even more intolerant of boisterous or excessive activity that occurs close to her. These photos show her reacting to them as they begin interacting with each other: she seems to need to calm them down or to move the activity away from her. Her body-language message has to carry weight so that she’ll be listened to, so it is intense: she bares her teeth and wrinkles her nose threateningly to show her disgust.
Mom’s expressions relay her message to them: “Calm down around me!”
Coyote youngsters are always particularly ecstatic to see each other — it always looks as though they haven’t seen each other in weeks, even though it’s only been an hour since they crossed paths! Here, there were the usual wiggles and squiggles and licking and bumping that go along with greetings — all more than Mom wanted to put up with.
But pups have a need to interact visually and physically. Note their eye contact, one flops to the ground unchallengingly, there is grooming, and the guy on the ground jumps up to affectionately grab his brother’s ear.
Even after conveying her displeasure to the pups, Mom ended up distancing herself from them to accommodate the situation because their interactions continue. Pups, of course, HAVE to interact — the need to do so is uncontrollable!
Notice from the pup behavior in the photos that there is a rank between them. Their ranks are something they work out and choose between themselves. If these happen to be conflicting, well, there’s a conflicting relationship that may grow in intensity over time. In this case, the more submissive youngster, I’ll call him *Pow*, adoringly approached the more dominant *Bold*, keeping his body low, and extending affectionate muzzle touches, and even twisting himself so he could affectionately grab Bold’s ear! Bold returned the affection by grooming Pow.
THAT was too rowdy for Mom who decides to distance herself; the pups continue their affectionate interaction with her gone.
Coyote interactions are often short, yet they are intense and full of meaning. The interactions often are longer at the evening rendezvous.
That’s Mom off to the far right, and the youngsters have by now calmed down from their initial excitement of seeing each other.
I want to make folks aware that injuries and ailments abound in the coyote world. Here are three youngster coyotes, all 8 months old, who have conditions to contend with which will impact them moving forwards.
Probable Glaucoma from an Injury:
I’ve recently posted about Lapis’ condition, above. Her right eye, from the time I first noticed it when she was about two months old, was blue. It remained this way for many months, but about a month ago that eye suddenly looked quite different: I don’t know if this is a developing condition, or if it is the result of trauma, so I contacted an animal veterinarian eye specialist who diagnosed her condition through photos as follows: “From what I can tell from the picture, the right eye likely has glaucoma (increased internal eye pressure. The lens within the eye is probably shifted rearward (posterior lens luxation). The right eye is probably blind, but appears to be comfortable as there is no squinting evident. Could be from a traumatic injury.”
The eye indeed looks glassy and blind, and from her behavior, it doesn’t seem to be painful. Without a second eye, she would have no depth of field, so this definitely will impact her survival skills. However, coyotes are resilient survivalists, and I expect her to live as full a life as any of the other coyotes. At this point in time, she plays with her siblings and hunts, but she is not adventurous when it comes to exploring new places: she prefers the safety of her immediate area. Then again, a sister of hers from last year’s litter behaved in this exact same way without such an affliction, so the eye may be having no effect at all on her life, so far.
Probable Corneal Edema from a Virus:
This youngster visits a backyard about once a day, so a human was able to take these concerning photos. The cloudy eyes are alarming, so we sent these photos to the same eye specialist as before. His response:
“The clouding of the eyes could be due to corneal edema. Since this is a youngster, I would suspect some sort of systemic infection caused inflammation of the cells lining the interior of the cornea (endothelial cells). One possibly is canine adenovirus type 1, which causes a viral hepatitis. This can cause corneal edema due to endothelial cell inflammation. Vision is present, but it is going to be hazy.”
A friend and colleague of mine who knows coyotes well tells me that generalities are always broken by coyotes. I.E., there are exceptions always. My own take is that this fella is compromised which will affect the quality of his life, but then again, he might be the exception. I can’t imagine an easy life with hazy vision. However, he has a safe-haven in someone’s backyard which he can retreat to. He is welcome there whenever he wants. Nonetheless, he’s a male and males have strong drives: he’ll want to find a mate and claim his own territory at some point. But let’s see how his story develops. As long as he returns to his backyard safety zone, we’ll be able to get updates.
Caudectormy from an accident or injury:
And then this shocking injury occurred within the last month: a completely severed tail. We have no idea how this happened, but when it was first observed, the cartilage was exposed and the wound was furious red. However, as we all know, coyotes are resilient, and the little female seems to be recovering and is functional, and hopefully out of pain at this point. If you see her, please leave her alone: her tail cannot be restored, and she already is healing. Remember that what is most important to these coyotes is their families and relationships within those families. Allowing them to remain with their families until they are ready to disperse is crucial for their well being. Unless a wild animal is immobile, or has mange, we leave most alone, allowing nature to follow its course.
You might recall that Lapis is the one-blue-eyed coyote pup I wrote about several months ago. I saw her a few days ago at almost 8 months of age: an update is in order. The change that struck hard is that the bright blue right eye of hers is no longer blue. The iris of that blue eye is now double the size of a regular eye — it almost looks like a glass eye. The iris is the colored structure in the front of the eye that regulates the amount of light that can enter the retina by controlling the size and diameter of the pupil. I don’t know how much light her eye lets in, but I would assume it is affected by the iris’s size. It seems obviously damaged or diseased, but it doesn’t seem to impact her activity.
Health issue in urban coyotes can develop at any time, but it’s sad when they develop early, as with this eye condition. I hope it’s not something that impacts her life too much. Last year pups in several of the coyote families developed neurological walking problems which they were either born with, or they developed very early after birth, possibly due to distemper. Other ailments I’ve encountered can be found HERE.
The day I saw Lapis, she was with one of her brothers and demanded that he interact with her: it was almost sparring behavior without the need to win. She’s comparatively petite compared to him but that didn’t stop her from engaging with him as an equal. He, on the other hand, I could tell, was careful not to overpower her. The roughhousing and wrestling he engages in with his brothers did not occur here.
I don’t know if he knows that something is wrong with her eye, but I would guess he does: coyotes are super aware of temperature differences, smells and visuals. For instance, they seem to know exactly where the hidden ticks are on each other. In another instance, I watched the mate of a young fellow sniff his broken ankle when that happened, and I knew that she knew it was injured and hurt him.
Below is a gallery of photos I took that day showing the sparring and interactions between these two siblings. The strong bond between them encompasses caring, playing, teasing, provoking, patience, and affection, in addition to warm companionship. Coyotes are hugely social and it is obvious that this relationship is important to both of them, and possibly is the highlight of their day. Things to notice: their communication through intense eye-to-eye contact, her jabbing him with her forepaws, affectionately biting his ear, biting his neck, grabbing his hindquarters, grabbing his head, putting her head over his shoulder, as she incited him to react to her. Notice he calmly allowed her to poke and flit as she pleased, and then gently and affectionately — almost protectively — reacted companionably more than anything else! [You can click on one of the photos to then scroll through them].
Three postings back, on the third of this month, I wrote a post about the unusual frenzied behavior of a young loner male and his brief “tangential breaching”, if that’s the right wording, of the species-divide which is a cornerstone for coexistence between humans and coyotes in urban areas. I described him as *full of beans* more than anything else. The behavior appears to be related to what I’m describing in this posting.
This current posting — based on what I observed several years ago — is also about the overly exuberant, energetic behavior of a young loner, in this instance a female, who for a while also purposefully flirted with the accepted species-divide between wild coyotes and humans. With this young female, the behavior occurred time and again over a three year span. With few exceptions, this female did stay away from humans in terms of distance and not physically engaging — but at times it was as though she were “flaunting” it on some level. Easy coexistence is of course based on firmly maintaining a wall of separation. Note that “dogs and coyotes”, as opposed to “humans and coyotes”, breach the divide all the time: they constantly communicate visually and interact with threats and defenses — lunging, barking, chases and even nipping. This posting is about humans and coyotes, not dogs and coyotes.
We all know that coyotes are highly social: they normally mate for life and live in families. The few exceptions that I’ve seen include the death of a mate, some rare *divorces* thought they normally pair up again, and transients who have not been able to secure a territory or mate for themselves. Coyotes in families interact and communicate constantly with one another. But what if such interaction is out of reach for one of them because there is no bonded companion or family around and therefore no opportunity to socialize with any members of their own species — this is a question I’ve asked myself to try and explain her behavior. It seems that a loner under these circumstances for an extended length of time — in her case it was three years — might seek it from another species, even if only psychologically and even if at a distance — i.e., virtually? It appeared to me, after many observations, that this loner coyote was starved for social interaction: and she appears to have picked humans (often with their dogs) for connecting with in this way. Interestingly, once she found a mate, she dropped this behavior absolutely and totally, which supports my speculated explanation.
Coyotes by nature are secretive in their behaviors and wary enough of us humans to avoid us almost always. However, over time in an urban environment, with constant human presence, they often begin to ignore us as benign beings rather than as “risks to be avoided”. And we humans normally think of their proximity to us as a “risk” to ourselves, so we label it as “brazen” or “bold”. Some people consider simply seeing coyotes in an urban setting as unacceptable and risky. In ranching communities, seeing coyotes on ranching properties is cause for killing them. So there’s avoidance on both sides which is very mutual. But over time, we, too, learn that they are pretty benign and we begin to accept them at closer range than we used to, especially if we don’t have a dog with us.
The young female’s behavior consisted of regularly sitting on a high knoll in plain view during daylight hours at the height of dog/human activity which she was there to watch, and of course, she in turn was watched back: there appeared to be mutual fascination between her and the human world. She seemed to know that she was being admired — coyotes, like the rest of us, can sense this sort of thing. She would then suddenly get excited and “perform” as in the video. She could easily have remained quietly observing or retreated to the bushes where she would not have been visible by anyone, but she chose not to do so. She chose to draw attention to herself, creating a visual interaction of sorts.
Coyotes feel they must respond to dogs chasing them or even passing through their territories. Hunting is another must which often takes place in the visual presence of humans, though normally at some distance from us and predominantly during the darker hours. On the other hand, in the two instances I’ve described in this and the previous posting, the flirtingly marginal interactions or visual engagements of coyotes with humans were purely a matter of choice on their part — no need was involved.
Each coyote is an individual with a unique personality. I don’t know if individual characteristics contributed to the behavior: some coyotes tend to be innately much more gregarious while others are more shy — you can see this in their interactions with each other, and in their reactions to approaching people or dogs. Although humans deliberately feeding her or even just leaving out food, might have initiated a gradual suppression of her natural wariness for awhile, neither she nor the male in my previous post were at all approaching humans for food — that is a separate type of behavior..
On the other side of the spectrum of this hyperactive attempt at interaction and attention-seeking are the coyotes who remain relaxed within close proximity of calm human presence, unobtrusively, out-of-the-way, quietly and without any fanfare: I’ve seen this in areas where no dogs are around. They actually aren’t interacting with humans, rather, they are simply there, mostly ignoring people only 20 feet away — a nod of acceptance might be exchanged, but that’s it — they aren’t seeking attention or performing. This happens in some community gardens where coyotes have been seen napping regularly in some of the planter boxes, in spite of there being plenty of gardeners close by working their plots. The gardeners respect them and leave them alone. Again, the one issue has been when dogs — who are not allowed in the gardens but enter anyway — come through and go after them. So here, coexistence in a very small space is not at all a problem for anyone, coyote or human, unless dogs appear.
With an ever-present and large urban human community, it seems logical that intelligent and curious coyotes might explore options beyond strict avoidance of humans. Maybe the examples I have given are simply manifestations of this.
Napping in a planter box with a beehive of gardeners quietly at work close by
Aging. From what I’ve seen in the urban environment of San Francisco, coyotes who reach 11 and 12 years of age are at the upper limit of their lifespans. Compare this to their lifespan in captivity which is about 14 to 16 years, or to their lifespan in the wild-wild, which I’m told is only 3 to 5 years. By the time they are old they may be on a second mate who would be younger than they are. They will have gained greying brows and a more worn look to their faces. Bones and muscles become worn out, so it takes them longer to get up, and as they get up you can see the stiffness and some unsteadiness that wasn’t there before, until they start moving: it’s harder for me to detect an aging coyote when they are moving. Fur, of course, hides a lot of the wear and tear they have accumulated, the same way that clothing hides it in humans.
Claimed territories. Some of these oldsters remain on their claimed territories right until the very end of their lives and then the territory is acquired by default by their offspring and/or mates: these territories can be owned by the same genetic families over many generations. On the other hand, in other territorial situations, the death of a mate might contribute to an inability for the surviving mate to hold on to a territory. Aging in itself is a weakening factor, leading an oldster to abandon his/her territory voluntarily. I’ve wondered if abandoning a territory might also be related to the end of a coyote’s ability to reproduce: this is pure conjecture on my part — I have no proof of this, it just crossed my mind. Territorial intruders who appear off and on in all territories are normally fended off fairly easily by a mated pair. However, without a mate and with growing weakness due to age or possibly illness, a territorial confrontation, or even a battle could ensue and the weaker claimants would be forced to leave. This happened at the Presidio in 2019.
What happens to the coyotes who leave or have been driven out from their territories? I seldom see them again, or if I do, it’s only briefly before they are gone forever. Because I never see them again, I am unaware of how their lives continue, if indeed they do continue. Their old territories become occupied by the newcomers and life goes on.
Interlopers. But sometimes, the displaced coyote who once owned a territory becomes an interloper who I’ve been able to follow, even if only sporadically. An interloper is a coyote who has no territory to call his own anymore, but who lives in the interstices between other claimed territories. Unless you know the individual coyote, you wouldn’t know his situation. The older or more injury-compromised these coyotes are, the less likely that they can take and hold onto a new territory. Such a coyote is Ash.
Before I go on with Ash, I want to mention that at the other end of the life cycle, dispersing yearlings all become interlopers until they find their own territories. Both yearling loners and yearlings who have found mates along the way and are still looking for territories are in this situation. They live and roam quietly on the fringes and interstices between territories and pass through claimed territories as quickly and unobtrusively as possible, assessing mostly through smells what the situation is in these territories: through smell, they can tell what coyotes have been around and how regularly they’ve been around and probably their reproductive condition and much more: they would be able to tell right off if one of the alphas is no longer around. If they find a vacant niche, moving in can be easy, but if all territories are taken, if conditions are right, they might actually fight for the territory. Those that don’t find territories after dispersing here in San Francisco appear to move south and out of the city in their continued search for a home, and along the way many are killed by cars [per a three-year, radio-collar study by the Presidio from 2015].
You’ll recall my posting about Ash: https://coyoteyipps.com/2023/08/23/ash-aging-injury-decline/. He left his territory because of an injury. I don’t know how he got the injury, and I don’t know what happened to his mate, but another coyote pair are now the alphas in the territory he left behind — and it appears to be a son of his but I’m not absolutely sure about this. As I wrote in that previous posting about Ash, I didn’t think Ash was going to last very long without his territory because he was getting along in years and had an extremely compromising injury which turned him into a *tripod* coyote, but he has proven me wrong. Since I wrote that post, he has appeared in various spots around the south and center part of the city, and I actually saw him in my own neighborhood at 5:30 a couple of mornings ago. He has been without a territory for well over a year now.
Ash on October 29th
In fact, I’m wondering if the city’s interloper population might be growing — if there are more like him.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about another interloper, a strapping young fellow, who intruded into a claimed territory: https://coyoteyipps.com/2023/10/22/intruder-dynamics-at-work/. This is a coyote I didn’t recognize, but his youth made me think that he was dispersing and looking for both a territory and a mate. I watched the fellow as he sat very still and listened to the howling chorus of the resident family. That must have summed up the situation for him because he left and never came back.
Two years ago I watched an interloper move into a territory where the alpha male had died of old age. He sired a litter, but apparently there were compatibility issues with the remaining alpha female there — it was very obvious she didn’t like him. When the pups were just four months old, that fellow left. The next year, he was the alpha in another territory, this time remaining for a full year. But after a year, he is now gone and I’ve not seen him since then. I can only reflect on the huge difference between this fellow and the family who has been tied to their territory for multiple generations.
And I’ve written about what I called a *Gypsy* coyote pair that actually picked up and moved across the city a couple of times, each time claiming and becoming the owners of the new territory they had moved to for several years where they raised their pups. Eventually this coyote pair ended up divorcing: yes, that also happens.
Who, in the way of coyotes, gets a territory, and who is excluded? Within urban areas, as I suppose within any area, coyotes gain advantages over conspecifics based on luck, being in the right place at the right time, physical size or strength, force of personality, ties to the family territory they were born into (generational territories), intelligence and a savvy nature when it comes to dealing with other coyotes — the same kind of the advantages humans have in moving forward with their lives and gaining choice territories. Less advantaged conspecifics are left with less advantageous territories or no territories. And competitors such as foxes have been pushed to the periphery of the city. Nature is not fair.
Meanwhile, back at Ash’s old homestead — a territory where he had been the alpha for years, where he had been through a couple of mates and raised many litters — the territory is now owned by another alpha pair who had a litter this year — the alpha male appears to be Ash’s son, though I need to confirm this. Of interest — and I bring this up because of the very different situations each coyote finds him/herself in — I notice that there’s a third coyote, a yearling, who appears to have been adopted into the family. Yes, adoptions take place, especially of injured or weak youngsters: I usually see it for under a month when a youngster is dispersing, but could it last longer? This yearling has been allowed into the territory, but does not hang around the territorial claimants as far as I have seen: my prediction is that he will soon move on: he’ll become an interloper himself. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn-havfPAwG/. From what I’ve seen, owning a territory confers much more survivability on coyotes.
So, every coyote and coyote family situation I’ve observed is different — no different from the way it is in humans. I’m told this individuality is due to our being generalists and therefore having amazing adaptability: we and they are not meant to survive in just one type of environmental niche or situation, as opposed to animal specialists who require unique situations and habitats for survival. This adaptability allows different potential traits to be developed in each of us as needed or sometimes as desired. So all generalizations regarding coyotes need to be qualified with many exceptions. The situations I describe here are ones I have seen; I’m sure there are many more variations. For more, you can type into the blog search box: territories, intruders, interlopers, dispersals.
I’ve now observed and experienced this kind of frenzied behavior twice by two different coyotes, two instances of it during my 16+ years of observations.
The behavior involved a young, loner coyote with what looked like an intense case of the zoomies. It’s not something that we normally associate with a wild animal. But it indeed happened. The young coyote acted high-spirited, feisty, and cocky-sure of himself. That people were around and observing seems to have been a contributing factor: the coyote appeared to be *performing* for us.
Apparently, this same coyote felt brave enough to approach someone in the same way the previous day. That young lady ran from him in fear and then tripped, making the experience a terrifying one for her.
So today, shortly after dawn, this young male coyote appeared on a large expanse of empty lawn which runs along a sidewalk. He had been sighted on the lawn every morning for about a week at about the same time. When I first set eyes on him, he was engaged in galloping spurts of back and forth zoomies while bobbing his head up, down and sideways like a pony, with sudden direction changes and sometimes chasing his tail. The brief spurts ended as quickly as they began with a few minutes of rest: lying down and looking around to see who was watching him. I was not positioned for taking photos until after the burst of zoomies.
Zoomies, feints: testing? (10/11)
I situated myself close to a tree and stood still about 100 feet away with my camera focused on him. The couple of other people who had been watching him walked on. He was aware of me and that I was watching him — coyotes are well aware of all of their surroundings. Then he suddenly leaped up and darted in my direction, seemingly playfully, with eyes fixed on me. This is when I changed the camera to video mode. I didn’t move as he performed a number of short charges/feints towards me, tauntingly ? testing ?, but then darted away. It was almost a semi-grazing movement towards and then away from me, but he never came into contact with me as he repelled off to the side, and not as close as it appears in the video — mine is a 150-650mm lens which can’t take anything close. My iPhone would have worked better, but that was in my pocket. I’ve seen this coyote behavior towards dogs, where play bows are incorporated into the behavior. The incident of over a year ago included these play bows, but not this time. I stood still and didn’t move or react as I held my camera focused on him, and then I slowly backed away, one step at a time as I kept filming him.
Was this play? Or maybe he was hoping I would run away, like I was told the last person did. Was he testing his own power of bluff against our human species’? He may have wondered why I was watching him and may have decided to figure out my intentions by testing if I would react or respond to his approaching me.
After I backed up about 20 feet, he stopped his dashings-in and sideways, and approached and sniffed the spot where I had been standing. After absorbing as much information as he could about me he ran off doing tail chases and tumbling on the lawn, no different from what our domestic dogs do during play. After a few of these he came back and looked at me out of the corner of his eye, again bobbing his head a little, like a young pony defying its owner. I could tell he was deciding whether to come towards me again. But I stood perfectly still, without reacting, holding my camera in front of my face, and that’s when he turned around and then flitted off — he had been unable to get a reaction out of me.
While I continued to watch, the coyote approached another person from behind, but that person wasn’t even aware of it and walked on. The coyote then sat down and waited, but no one else came by, so he then jumped up and darted off and out of view for good.
This was not an *attack* by any means. This animal did not come towards me to assault me, bite me, or injure me, even though the combination of cockiness, energy, and testing, could be used to label him as *bold* in a world where we expect him to shy away from us. It was a uniquely interesting interaction.
In the previous case, several years ago, that coyote had been profusely fed by humans. In this case today, I don’t know if there has been feeding going on: I’m hoping to find out. I’m speculating that the behavior might have been, on some level, territorial in nature — possibly trying to push people out without being aggressive about it? In other words, a sort of, “I’m only teasing” with a kernel of truth?
What should anyone do if they encounter this type of behavior? I myself was documenting him, so I remained totally neutral and didn’t react at all. I could have, and would suggest that others, treat him as though you had a dog with you: simply walk away calmly. However, if he advances critically close, close enough to potentially touch you, get super angry and toss some 1″ stones towards (not at) his legs to show him that his behavior is not appreciated or acceptable. I want to reiterate that this is RARE behavior. But if it happened to me, it could happen to you, and you should know about it.
Appropriate terms I’ve used for this situation:
zoomies: a sudden burst of frenetic energy in which an animal (typically a dog or cat) runs to and fro. “Many dogs get the zoomies after a bath”
frenzied: wildly excited and uncontrolled
frenetic: fast and energetic in a rather wild and uncontrolled way
feint: to give a false appearance or to fake something
testing: revealing a person’s capabilities by putting them under strain; challenging.
full of beans: very lively and have a lot of energy and enthusiasm.
grazingly: to brush closely against ( he came close, but there was no contact)
cocky sure: marked by overconfidence or presumptuousness
bold: not hesitating or fearful in the face of actual or possible danger or rebuff
The start of any of my observation sessions involves always identifying WHO the coyote is that I’m watching. I use their faces to identify them because their coats not only change over the seasons as they shed and grow, but they also appear different under different lighting and weather conditions. Once I have their identity down, I of course can relate any behaviors I see to what I already know about the coyote.
To begin with, the coyote I began watching was facing away so I couldn’t positively identify him when I started. From his general shape I initially assumed he was the alpha male of the family that lived in this location. Several times he gave me a profile view, but that resulted in more questions than answers. And then I saw his face straight on and his light eyes: no, this was definitely not one of the coyotes who lived here — it was an intruder!
The coyote we saw faced away from us. When he finally looked over at us, we could see that this indeed was an intruder, not part of the resident family.
Coyotes are allowed to briefly pass through claimed territories without incident if they do so quickly, without challenging the resident coyotes. Intruders have been rare in this particular territory. Maybe there have been as many as five in this one territory in the entire time I’ve been observing — over the past 16 years — so it was actually special and exciting to see him there! A friend of mine and I watched intently. The coyote remained in the one location we had found him, standing most of the time, and then finally sitting down, always facing away from us.
While he sat there, the resident family began to howl. Were they aware of him? I don’t really know if the howling was related to him: it was not particularly intense or threatening, as far as I could hear. I took a short blurry video and have included that so that you can hear the family vocalizations and the intruder’s lack of vocal response. Although he remained quiet and did not respond to their howls, he was picking up as many signals as he could about the situation, and you can be sure that he was indeed reacting internally. The video is blurry because the camera automatically focused on the long surrounding grasses, but the important point is to hear the vocalizations, and see that this outsider listened intently. If he were part of the family he most likely would have responded. When the howling stopped, he slowly got up and began moving away from the area.
Walking away while continually looking over his shoulder to where the howling had come from.
We followed him for a short distance as he headed slowly, deliberately and decisively out of the park, but then we turned back — we didn’t want to interfere at all with his exit, we already knew he was headed out. We returned to where we had originally been, and within minutes both the resident alpha male and the alpha female rushed over close to where that intruder had been. And they too, faced the direction where they had been howling from, never actually going to the intruder’s exact spot. I suppose they will discover and explore that later. Probably their strong olfactory equipment had already let them know that the intruder had departed. They did not try to pursue him: it’s to coyote’s benefit not to engage in a fight which might injure them enough to prevent survival.
Mom and Dad rush over (top two photos) and remained in an anxious state of alert (bottom photo). Possibly they were keeping their eyes on where they knew the pups were.
After the very palpable bulk of tension had subsided, the alpha male wandered to the family’s rendezvous spot, but a youngster there must have sensed the tension because he remained on his back even though his dad was a substantial distance away. I suppose the family will be on higher alert for the next little while.
I’ve seen a number of intruders throughout San Francisco in the 16+ years I’ve been observing, and in each, something what I saw was a little different. I’ve seen an intruder simply turn and leave shortly after coming into a foreign territory and finding out what the situation was by sniffing — the resident family, as far as I could tell, did not even know he was there, though they probably sniffed his presence at a later time. And I’ve also watched territorial claimants hotly pursue intruders and even viciously attack in their effort to get that intruder to leave.
This time, we heard an intruder react to territorial vocalizations by quietly leaving, and the family react anxiously. Maybe the family saw him leave and knew he wouldn’t be coming back — there’s no reason for a fight here. Fighting happens only when one side won’t back down: you might recall Scout’s plight [search *Scout* if you are interested]. Other examples of intrusions can be found by typing in *intruder* into the blog’s search box.
Pup remains in his most submissive position as he reads Dad’s state of mind before he even gets near to the youngster!
The Intruder today looked like he was 2 or 3 years old — he would have been looking for a territory and a mate. Just like for humans, life’s various transitions for some coyotes are smooth and seamless, and for others there is much more effort and uncertainty as they search for openings and opportunities to improve their situations, and ultimately find themselves. I think this is a good way to look at their lives: as very parallel to our own.
Lapis is a six month old pup born this year with one blue eye (the right eye) and one brown eye. She’s a beautiful if unusual coyote with slightly lighter fur than her siblings!
Apparently, blue occurs when there is a lack or reduction of melanin. Melanin produces brown eyes. This phenomenon occurs either due to genetic reasons or if there has been an eye injury.
At this point, I’m wondering if more could be going on than just a genetic color difference. There could have been an injury OR it might be that blue eyes have different anatomical properties than brown eyes in animals. In humans, for instance myself, blue eyes happen to be more sensitive to light than brown eyes — so there must be some, even if minor, anatomical difference. If blue eyes are more sensitive to light, I wondered if blue eyes see better at night than brown eyes. A Google search informed me that human blue eyes are more sensitive to light during the day, and by the same token, people with blue eyes tend to see better at night, unless there are bright lights. In other words, blue eyes allow more light into the retina. Wouldn’t this same physiology also pertain to animals? Biologist Carl Safina has pointed out that animals and humans actually have the same types of cells.
I ask this because Lapis appeared in one of my field infrared-lit cameras one night. See video below. Interestingly, her blue eye isn’t reflecting the light as well/as much as the other eye, in fact, the reflecting part seems to be a smaller circle of light than the brown eye, limited to the center of the eye. What is involved in the reflecting eyes is the tapetum.
The tapetum lucidum (Latin for “shining layer”) is the reflective surface in the back of the retina in some animals. It basically helps these animals see super-well at night by re-using the little light there is to maintain sharpness and contrast of an image on the retina — in other words, it increases the quantity of light passing through the retina by as much as 44%. It is also what causes the glowing eye phenomenon known as “eyeshine” which can be seen in night-vision cameras or when a flashlight is used. I see it in my nighttime infrared lit cameras. When there is an injury to the eye, this tapetum lucidum does not reflect the light — in fact, the animal looks like it has only one eye in the night vision cameras..
So there’s either a problem with the eye, such as an injury, OR blue eyes don’t form a fully reflecting tapetum surface because that would let in too much light. I’m coming to this conclusion based on this one case and offering it as food for thought and hoping for more input from other observers.
Further interesting reading on blue eyes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any articles on the quality of tapetum surfaces in blue eyes.
A raccoon with an eye injury: only the good eye reflects infrared light.
About My Site and Me: This website reflects my 17 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 