Bio
Janet Kessler: Documentation, Research and Outreach
Janet, known throughout San Francisco as “the Coyote Lady”, is a self-taught naturalist and independent coyote researcher who is into her 19th year of daily field research: documenting our urban coyote behavior and family life — including their behavior at encounters with people and pets. She has been called a “pioneer in the photo-documentation of the lives of urban coyotes, capturing the intimate lives” or these animals.
More recently, she has delved into their population dynamics, mapping their territories and some of their dispersals here in san Francisco without the use of tags or radio-collars. She is able to do this through facial recognition of each coyote — she’s likely the only person who knows just about all of the coyotes here in San Francisco individually, their families, and the extent of each of their territories. She is using DNA from scat, which is being analyzed by Dr. Benjamin Sacks’ Lab at UC Davis to confirm her visual findings and the origin of this population from north of San Francisco.
She shares guidelines and observations through published articles, videos, posters, exhibits, flyers, presentations, news interviews, and talks with walkers and dog walkers in the parks. She is combating and correcting the negative perceptions of coyotes spread through rumors and social media. She is a co-founder of Coyotecoexistence.com, creator of the acclaimed educational video “Coyotes As Neighbors”. She maintains a blog about urban coyotes life and issues in San Francisco: coyoteyipps.com; and an Instagram account by that same name.
Janet has an Anthropology degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Master’s from that same university in Art History. She was born in South America and spend her childhood there. She has worked at Vorpal Gallery, U.S. News and World Report, and at several law offices, and has enjoyed being a 100% mom to her sons and playing her pedal harp. It was after a finger was nearly sliced off — which put an end to harp playing for awhile — that she met her first coyote on Twin Peaks in 2007. Her enchantment with these critters has never abated.
For my bibliography, press here: Bibliography.
Janet’s statements
“I *Do Coyotes*! I spend my time watching them and documenting them, and then I share my first-hand information, compassion, and love for the animals with folks in various ways, in hopes of filling an informational void which prompts fears or misunderstanding. Coyotes are always doing something — this is why they are so interesting. By watching carefully and noticing what occurs before and after a behavior, you can tell what’s going on.”
“One thing I don’t think I’ve made very clear in my blog is that I’m not simply a “photographer”. I’ve never studied photography, I don’t have a degree in it, I’ve never sold a single photo. The camera for me is my tool for gathering information: to help with identification and to find out about relationships, family behaviors, family interactions, behaviors at encounters with people and pets and vice versa, etc. My camera is my notebook. SOME of my photos are “good photographs”, earning me the moniker of “photographer”. But the camera is simply a tool for what I really do, which is much more substantive and in-depth than simply “photography”. As Courtney Quirin put it: I’m a “pioneer in the photo-documentation of the lives of urban coyotes, capturing the intimate lives” of these animals.
Background in bref:
My name is Janet Kessler, known throughout San Francisco as “The Coyote Lady”. I’m a 76 year old self-taught naturalist, and I’ve been been studying and documenting coyote behavior here in San Francisco for the past 18+ years. I maintain a blog: http://www.coyoteyipps.com, and an Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/coyoteyipps/, with information, guidelines and snippets about coyote behavior here in San Francisco. I’m out daily observing coyote behavior and increasing awareness and best guidelines for coexistence.
Exhibits
Years ago, in 2009-10, I had a photographic wildlife exhibit up in the Main Library on the 5th floor Stegner Collection, and even before that at the Seed Gallery in the Presidio in 2007. In 2018 I had another large educational exhibit at the Sausalito Library, and I’ve had educational coyote photo displays at various times at the Randall Museum where I had another one in 2024.
Slide Talks
I’ve given talks at the Fort Mason Community Garden, the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA, the Waldorf School, Arden Wood, and more locations. I was sponsored to give a talk by Friends of the SF Library at the Park Branch of the San Francisco Public Library on August 31st of this year 2024, August 31 at the Park Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, and will have another one at the North Beach Branch Library on November 12th. In the winter of 2024-2025 I gave a blitz of talks at various Library locations throughout the City: the public needs to hear more than simply about dog/coyote issues which they read in the newspapers. Also, pupping season begins in the Spring, so the winter blitz of talks is well timed. Some of these presentations are preserved in videos on my blog. And I’ve also created six introductory video presentations based on my work, including in Spanish and Mandarin. This is a short version of my slide presentation given on March 23, 2025 at the Unitarian Church on Franklin & Geary which was recorded for YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjmGH5xpfMs]
Film
On March 26th I was the content expert for the film “don’t feed the coyotes”, where I’m actually one of the movie stars (!): https://www.waterbear.com/watch/dont-feed-the-coyotes
Articles
I’ve appeared in a number of published articles, including:
New study reveals what urban coyotes are really eating in SF, SFGate, March 10, 2024: https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/urban-coyote-diets-san-francisco-18703009.php
The San Francisco resident documenting the city’s coyote population, SFGate, April 28, 2023: https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/san-francisco-coyote-lady-documents-17917811.php
The Woman Who Follows Urban Coyotes, by Vivian Ho, The Guardian, Feb 26, 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/26/san-francisco-coyote-lady-urban-wildlife-on-rise
San Francisco’s urban coyotes have a friend in local “Coyote Lady’, Sacramento Bee, July 17, 2017: https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article161489933.html
San Francisco’s Coyotes are Back, and They are Thriving, by Bianca Taylor, KQED Podcast, Podcast, February 20, 2020: https://www.kqed.org/news/11799871/bay-curious-coyotes
