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!
I wanted to share with you a student’s observations and leanings. Which lead to more questions.
Kinky Tail continues to raise her very active litter. There are 7 now..so either there was a miscount originally or 2 have disappeared. They think 2 pups have disappeared because there is a local golden eagle who for years has been seen with coyote pups, fox kits and feral cats. It seasonally comes to this area during lambing and calving times. It has been seen daily flying over den areas.
That well may have encouraged Kinky to move pups as well as..ticks. Locally we’ve seen plague level numbers of ticks. And Kinkys grooming times with pups seemed very long last week. Her last den area was absolutely infested with 3 species of ticks. Ugh.
Now however, Kinky moved pups to a rendezvous of log piles, poison oak bushes, and grazing cattle.
The student says she doesn’t believe the location was randomly picked.
The abundance of poison oak keeps people out except rarely riders of horse or quads passing thru. Ranch folk.
The grazed range grass is short and doesn’t hold high tick densities compared with long grasses or brush areas.
And finally, having an entire cow to scavenge 2 miles away after move means less animals near pups (scavengers galore) and Kinky doesn’t have to hunt the longer grass fields for voles. Which mean tick pick up. She has the cow or many dozens of caches. Also discovered was she visits an orchard and gleans old fallen Apple’s from last Fall.
This Student feels Kinky’s choice of den was premeditated and thought carefully out. It has minimal tick numbers. Humans rarely come and pass quickly. It’s open with vast vistas and hillsides yet has hiding places for pups. The Longhorns don’t encourage canine visitors. It’s close to dead cow but far enough pups don’t meet scavengers.
She also is study wild turkey brood site selections and says the studies lend to each other. Wild Turkey Hens need to sit on eggs around 28 days. The picked site is obviously paramount. A poorly picked site is disastrous. There are hens that pick poorly or lose patience or dedication and leave eggs too long as well. Then there are hens that cover eggs while minimally foraging for bugs and food and rush back fast. How a Hen Broods means Everything. And not all hens are good moms.
She says it’s same for Coyote. Some mothers are functional but rather minimal. Or make bad choices. Some..seem to be absolutely dedicated mothers. She feels most coyote are very dedicated Moms.
So how much is choice and thought when picking a site to hide and raise your kids? She feels Kinky Tail is neighborhood cognizant.
In her words “No wolf gang signs. No noisy dog parties. No bad nosy people. Riding thru people that she’s known since pup and plenty of longhorns and poison oak seem the latest mood and pic”
Kinky is doing well. She has 7 very active very fat pups. She’s busy busy busy. By day she stays at den. At night it’s cow scavenging, cow caches and long long drinks. And some nights old apples. She grooms her pups even as she comes home bedraggled. Growls briefly but playfully at Mate as he leaves for day shift.
I’ve recieved updates on Kinkytail and as well news of Slim Jim’s peaceful death.
The 4 biology students who also are rancher’s kids and grandkids have really kept up especially with Kinkytail’s life. They have goals as not only biologists but to turn several vast ranches into one enormous bison operation. Great kids and very observant.
Slim Jim was observed end of October very slow and wobbly. He slept in open spots not caring it seemed but usually in middle of bison or out on rocks. His daughter Kinky seemed to visit him regularly. He was seen stiffly yet successfully hunting voles though nearly 100% blind. He also..every day..still tossed sticks about briefly in play.
Early on in November Slim seemed to vanish. His vocalizations weren’t heard. And Kinkytail howled for days…one of the observer’s said “that’s stress. Thats loss”.
On Nov 9th Slim Jim was found curled inside a rounded hay bale in fields. He seemed to have passed in sleep. He had a small stick in paws.
He was examined by the students and cremated on his land on ranch. He weighed 38 lbs and seemed in reasonable condition. All of his remaining 7 teeth were worn very low. His neck and upper spine vertebrae were deformed it seemed by traumatic injury…(likely the wolf attack nearly 2 years ago) but he healed and was mobile. If a human..wheelchair and canes would have been needed. Slim carried on. His cataracts were thick. Glimmers of light likely seen and shadows. Age likely 12-14 years. A tooth was removed to age in lab.
The indomitable Kinkytail
Rest well Slim Jim. In his long life we only knew his latter years.His mate and pups were killed by wolves and he was injured badly. His surviving daughter Kinkytail not only survived with him..but grew up ultra advanced. Some call her mean and ruthless type. Kinky got her Mate early in life and pupped as yearling. She then came back to her old place and Slim (again). She fetched her Father when she pupped. He babysat. She seemed to check on Slim often in his little pocket of quiet. Currently..she has banished a daughter pup. She is driving off her Mate it seems. He seemed “lackluster” in helping defend turf or following passing wolves or dogs or seeing off coyote visitors.
Older pic of Many Blows. His swelling is now reduced. He is a very scarred but powerful veteran coyote.
She is being visited often by Many Blows..an older veteran coyote who had swollen jaw months. Many Blows had 2 younger female follower..whom Kinkytail has routinely chased off. They have not been seen recently. And Many Blows keeps chasing the lackluster but confused Mate..and Kinkytail watches in approval.
Kinkytail grew up in enormous litter of two combined litters. Her older sister returned when widowed and bore her litter with her and Kinkys mom. So…
Kinky grew up with huge litter. Which attracted wolves. Her Mom and littermates wiped out, she stuck with injured Dad and grew up fast. Very intense little coyote.
Bad Ears Pack…making incursions but kept at bay.
Kinkytail will spot you and bark miles away. She trails wolves when they pass through and escorts them out. At distance. She accepts the students who watch her..and disappears on other humans.
Same with ranch dogs. She knows the locals. Including my pack. Chases strange dogs off her land.
She has an intensity and toughness surpassing any so far. Especially for one so young. She seems very strategic. All summer she has resisted the incursions and scouting of the Bad Ear Pack. All of them bear her tooth marks. It’s thought with a powerhouse like Many Blows Kinky Tail will do very well in future.
It’s always guessing with the coyote. Wild lives are tenuous and can change in literal heartbeats. But..Kinky Tails aura is no guesswork. And Slim Jim’s life was a great one indeed.
[The first part of this is re-posted from my Instagram account, and then I explore a coyote territorial “takeover” scenario with input from Walkaboutlou].
Vida was a three-year-old first-time mom who suddenly went missing on July 25th, and we’ve not seen her again. She was a tiny and easy-going coyote who minded her own business and stayed away from people and dogs in her park. She was an absolutely ideal neighbor.
She had two four-month old pups whom she would not have just left. No, something happened — but what? There have been no DOA coyotes picked up by Animal Care and Control since then, so she doesn’t appear to have been hit by a car. The one hint as to what might have happened is the incredibly intense distressed coyote vocalizations every night around midnight close to her denning area over the period when she went missing, the kind I’ve been hearing, not after a simple chase by a dog, but after a much more intense and relentless hot pursuit by a powerful dog bent on “getting the coyote”, as I’ve recently posted.
I can’t help but thinkof the possibility that her disappearance might have been due to such foul play. The disturbing vocalizations went on intensely for many nights and pointed to violent upheaval of some type. I know it sounds far fetched — and this would be a worst-case scenario — but I wouldn’t put her disappearance past someone with a hunting dog who hates coyotes — maybe even brought into the city by a seriously disgruntled park-going individual. More than once I’ve heard several individuals say they were going to shoot the coyotes — take the law into their own hands because they didn’t like the law — the law didn’t suit them. The law, BTW, here in San Francisco, is that you can’t harm or harass wildlife.
There are a number of humans who are outraged and outspokenly livid that trails were closed by the Park Department this denning season, having been closed off to keep both dogs and coyotes out of each other’s way and to curtail conflict. In their minds, “whole sections of parks were turned over to the coyotes.” The people who think this way are not many, but they sure are vocal, loud, and self-righteous about it. They are individuals who feel THEY have a handle on how things “should be” and are unable to accept anything different — anything inconvenient to them. I want to point out to them that until the 1920s, Bald Eagles were considered vermin and shot on sight for hunting small animals and as a dire threat to children — they were one of those animals that “shouldn’t be here”.
I have seen large dogs sicced on coyotes by their owners in other SF parks — I was there and stopped it. What I do know is that Vida is gone and there were intensely distressed vocalizations tied into her disappearance, and then another female suddenly appeared and filled her niche. Fortunately, last I saw, Dad was still regurgitating food for the pups, picked up by a field-camera, so they are continuing to be taken care of. Vida has never reappeared.
As I said, I don’t have absolute proof that dogs were involved, I’m just speculating, as a possible scenario, based on my observations of the overall situation and all the input I’ve received. On the face of it, that’s the most likely scenario of what happened. But I want to interject another script or storyline possibility, no matter how unlikely, to show the breadth and depth of coyote behavior more than anything else.
A full month after Vida disappeared, my field camera in the area captured a pummeling fight between two female coyotes. The aggressive victor of the fight turned out to be none other than Libe, the new alpha female in the territory — the one who replaced Vida. I had no trouble identifying her. As I watched the video clip a thought passed through my head: What IF the smaller coyote had been Vida? This potentiality came to mind because the smaller, losing coyote had a similar size and body configuration as Vida. In spite of that, in Vida’s case, there appear to be too many negating factors: Vida has always been easy for me to identify, but I was unable to in the clip; the fight happened a full month after Vida stopped appearing, whereas if she had been forcefully driven away she would have tried repeatedly to reclaim her territory and family, but she didn’t — coyotes are intensely tied to their families; and she would have been more the aggressor rather than simply putting up a defense as might a dispersing coyote, as seen in the video — in the video it’s Libe who is doing all the pummeling.
So, more as a point of interest, I want it to be known that “takeover” situations — i.e. “stealing” — though exceptionally rare when there are pups, appear to be remotely possible.
Duking it out
I asked my friend, Walkaboutlou, who has revealed his deep understanding of coyotes from years of first-hand interest and observations, if he had ever heard of, or thought it possible, that an outsider single female could come in and fight and oust a mother with four-month-old pups from her territory? Could this happen? Do coyotes “steal” each other’s families? Ever? Commonly? I’ve never seen it. I myself had seen single coyotes ousted from territories, but in those cases, there were no pups and there was no mate, and I’ve seen the territories of older coyotes who have lost their mates taken over forcefully by a more robust and younger coyote pair.
Hi Janet,
I’m not a canine behaviorist professional in domestic or wild canids. However I always say …
Almost anything is possible.
I’ve seen seemingly stable and generational coyote packs that all have degree of relatedness and various affiliations too. Most areas are extremely fluid because coyote typically on average live rather fast lives. If you only have a few years to live, hold a place and have some pups hopefully … you live intense.
The ranching family I know who has known their coyote packs decades has mentioned take overs or changes. Sometimes a male or female is “driven” out. And their mate leaves with them.
Other times … it seems some mates are determined to stay in territory, and join the victor. Much like cats. The territory holds them more than the bond.
I think any outcome or dynamic is possible. The contact calls and stress vocalizations would happen with dog aggression, or coyote take over. Its upheaval.
I also know some coyote depart like ghost never to be seen again if they lose territory. And others are very stubborn to relinquish old stomping grounds.
However … the intensity of take over merits … usually … short term stuff. It’s usually just so stressful to both hunt and survive the usual … AND wage battles for turf it’s usually too much to maintain any length of time.
That being said … a Mother of pups and with mate is rarely usurped so early. It would be very interesting to know the history of challenger and her relationship with the current male. Some coyote …(like some people) don’t care about property rights, laws … or bonds. They see a place. A territory. A pack. And say…MINE. Take it or leave it. I’m coming in. You are leaving or submitting. Its mine.
It seems harsh. But many coyote feel impelled to take actions asap especially in areas where territory isnt easy to find.
I think there are outsider females and males that absolutely will take over everything. They may drive out the whole family. Or just the same sex target. (Mother, Daughters)
Fascinating stuff. Lou
BTW, the new female, Libe, two years old I would say, had been living in an adjacent territory as a loner for at least a year. That adjacent territory was not ideal in that it was entirely on the urban residential grid, composed of 25×100 foot lots with houses and apartments, and little open space in addition to small backyards, whereas Vida’s territory had it all: neighborhoods to trek through, a vast wild open space, a mate, pups. Libe trekked through her urban territory daily, usually at night, dawn or dusk, and kept away from people and dogs but allowed herself to be seen without any fear. I had seen her trekking right up to the periphery of Vida’s territory within a month of Vida’s disappearance, and may have been entering and assessing the situation. The only real interactive “behavior” of hers that I’ve ever seen is that fight in the field camera where she showed her mettle: she was pretty darn spunky and in control there. But recently she also has shown a spunky defiance towards dogs, challengingly occupying their play-space for short spells.
So, what I’m saying here is that Vida was most likely brutally eliminated/killed by a dog. BUT, almost anything is possible in the coyote world, as stated by Lou, including for an outsider coyote to come in and steal — lock, stock and barrel — what belonged to another coyote. Another circumstance diminishing that latter possibility here is that Vida and her mate were extremely supportive, playful, and affectionate with each other. It seems he would have defended her. But maybe not?
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.
Scout is one of the coyotes — a 7-year-old — whose life I’ve been following and whose story I’ve been telling. However, she has pretty much been off of my radar for the last six months: she all but disappeared from her territory during that time-frame. I knew she was not far away because she appeared regularly in her old territory, even if only briefly, in the dead of night, with her mate, Scooter, and sometimes one of her yearlings: I have been able to capture this because of a field camera I put out in her old territory. And, through the field camera, I’ve been able to capture a little about her continued story. Here is an update and summary of her story.
Update: What the field camera showed about Scout was her rounded shape back in March and then in April her losing that roundness and gaining the lactating tits of a nursing mom. Ahh, so Scout had another family — her third litter. But she had them elsewhere, not in her old long-time claimed territory — the territory she had battled for so valiantly when an intruder tried taking it from her in 2019. Few coyotes, once established in a claimed territory, move away, so this is an unusual situation. Of additional interest is that she returns almost nightly to her old territory where several of her yearling pups still remain.
These are field camera photos taken at the old territory, showing Scout fat to the left, Scout svelte again in the middle, and Scout lactating to the right — the camera is on a path she habitually frequented and apparently still does.
Video allowing me to identify her
I kept my eyes and ears open for any clues as to her new location. People told me about coyotes they had seen, but either they didn’t have photos, or the photos were not of Scout. One lady I met told me she had taken some videos of a coyote on the street and offered to share them with me. I sent her my email, asking to see the videos, but she forgot to check her messages until just a week ago, six months after our exchange! So a week ago I saw the video to the right where I was able to identify Scout! I then spent several mornings talking to more and more people where the video had been taken, and within a few days who should I come across but Scout herself!
I gasped, and Scout saw me. She of course must know who I am from my documenting her movements and behaviors over the last seven years. She stopped and looked at me, knowing I would not approach, and then she lay down for a few minutes, allowing me time to watch her. After a few minutes, her mate, who is much more flighty and wary, appeared and then fled when he saw a group of people nearby. But he stopped when he saw Scout watching me — her calmness seemed to calm him. After a few minutes, he must have beckoned her because she turned to go with him: he and she are a tight team, and work and communicate seemingly telepathically as a unit. It’s really nice to observe this!
Scout and Scooter at their new location a few days ago. Please remember that I don’t reveal locations for the coyotes’ sake: for their privacy and security, but I wanted to share Scout’s continuing story, which many people have followed on my blog.
Over the next few days I found that they were there with one of their yearling sons born last year, Cyrano. Over those next few days, I observed them patrolling the surrounding area and I observed some of their food sources: pizzas left out for them, I saw them hunt and eat gophers, and a cat (yikes!). There are ducks not far away and squirrels all over the place in the immediate area, and I know they trek over 2 miles each night to mark their territory as they search for and return to food sources they know about: for example, they’ll return to fruit trees, once ripened, until the fruit is gone.
To the left is a one-year-old son who migrated with them to their new location, and to the right is one of their new pups — I’ve counted two (there may be more) in the litter born this last April.
And I even glimpsed two pups hanging around what must be their densite. I make it a practice to stay away from dens, but this year I literally and inadvertently tripped over a handful of them. These particular dens are minimally hidden and placed where anyone would walk. If there had been predators around, these pups would have perished long ago. Then again, maybe the coyotes comprehend that there are no real predators around. Loose dogs could injure them, but most are not actively looking for them as prey to eat.
There’s plenty of food in the area
The den is a hollow under a fallen tree
Parents patrol the streets and fields — they know everything about their territories.
They visit their old territory at night where this, their two-year-old offspring appears to be holding down the fort!
A little backgroundfor those who haven’t followed her story here. Scout was the first *litter* if you want to call it that — she was a singleton pup — born in 2015 to a young 2-year-old mom and that 2-year-old’s 6-year-old father. Yes: inbreeding. There was a lot in that family. There are stories about her birth family on my blog.
I watched Scout grow up as a defiant little rascal — her father was constantly chasing her and throwing her on her back because of her defying him. I guess she had had enough of it by 9-months of age, because that’s when she dispersed. It’s one of the earliest dispersals I’ve seen — most take place between 1 and 2 years of age. I last observed her in her birth territory in January of 2016, and two weeks later, in February, she had appeared where she would remain for the next six years. It was a vacant territory 1.6 miles away from her birthplace. There had been territorial coyotes there before, but the last alpha was killed by a car, and not until Scout arrived was that vacancy refilled. Luck was with her, considering that the majority of dispersing youngsters move south and out of the city due to a lack of territorial vacancies within the city, and on top of that, while dispersing, many, many get hit and killed by cars. Cars are their chief killers in cities.
Scout remained a loner for three more years. Remembering that coyotes are highly social, this must have been difficult for her. She filled the void by watching humans and their dogs. Some people fed her. Some people fed her from cars. This caused her to hang around, wait for food, chase cars. If she saw you eyeing her, she would perform — she seemed to like attention, which most coyotes do not: she would start playing with a stick, or a ball, or do zoomies — almost in imitation of all the dogs she had been watching. She seemed to smile more often than other coyotes I see — maybe she was imitating her human and dog neighbors?? There was one dog she hated and would bark at when he came into sight, there were other dogs she ran from, and others she would test: people thought she was playing with their dogs, but I could see it was simply *testing* behavior.
Finally, into her 4th year at this territory, a strapping young fellow appeared and both she and he hit it off. This was a fellow I had watched grow up in North Beach, over four miles away. He was dispersing now, at 1.8 years of age. Their immediate friendship was amazing to watch: this previous loner was now smitten with the company of another coyote. They walked around together gazing in each others eyes (I’m not kidding), they played and cuddled and teased each other. They hunted together and howled together and she looked after him and would get worried when she felt he was endangered. Rightly so: he ended up acquiring a broken ankle (diagnosed by my wildlife vet based on videos I sent her) after being chased by a dog. I had to convince everyone to please leave that coyote alone, that the injury would heal on its own, which it did. Several people went so far as to hire a trapper so they could *fix* the coyote. People simply didn’t realize how powerful nature is as a healer. But also removing a coyote from his social situation would have been absolutely detrimental for both him and Scout, disrupting the relationship and opening the way for another coyote to take his place, which his absence would have done.
For four months, everything went smashingly well, with Scout paying less attention to people, dogs, and cars, and spending more time learning to be the social coyote she was meant to be, and then suddenly everything was turned upside down for her: another powerful little female showed up who decided to fight for Scout’s territory. There was a skirmish under a car and blood spurted out. The intruder had been radio-collared and tagged only a month or so earlier in the Presidio. Unfortunately, the radio-collar gave that intruder, I call her Wired, an advantage: it served as protective armor. I next saw Scout with bloody gashes on her neck and forehead. And then I saw her flee as she was pursued throughout a lot of the city by this single-minded female intruder. I followed their trajectory into Diamond Heights, Dolores Heights, Noe Valley, McLaren. Scout attempted to return to HER territory several times, but each time she was repulsed by Wired. This exile lasted about 6 months, and then suddenly one day, Wired was no longer around. It turned out that Wired had found a better territory in the Presidio, which is where she has been living with her mate born and dispersed from North Beach. They’ve had several litters of pups.
So, I think to her great surprise, Scout found herself returning to her territory without having to face Wired. She carefully allowed herself to become more and more visible and then more and more at ease there. That was in June of 2019. That fall, a new male appeared. Although the relationship was nothing like her first love (!), her bond and devotion to him, and his for her, has grown. In 2020 they had their first litter of four pups, three of whom survived to adulthood. In 2021 they had a second litter of 6 pups, one of whom was killed by rat poison and one by a car. You can read about all this here.
It is during the fall of 2021 that everyone who knew her started seeing less and less of Scout and Scooter. They stopped their sentry duty where they had been seen daily for years. Everyone began to see them more sporadically and for shorter periods of time. And then I noted, they no longer appeared at all, except in the deep of night caught on a trap camera. That was six months ago.
Addendum: I can speculate on what might have contributed to her move based on what I know was going on, but of course we’ll never know for sure if these were contributing factors. *The huge number of dogs in her old territory didn’t seem to be an issue earlier on, but as Scout got older they may have become more of a problem for her — harder for her to deal with. *Last summer one of her pups born last year died of rat poisoning and we noticed that she herself became slow and lethargic at that time — and it’s shortly after this that we stopped seeing her so often: might she have ingested a less-than-lethal dose of the same rat poison that killed one of her sons? It’s something that might have influenced her to move. *Then, a large fenced-in area — and therefore dog-free refuge which she often retreated to — became a construction zone so she no longer had a totally safe place to go, especially if there were to be more pups. *Most of the holes under the fence of that sanctuary were boarded up at the time construction began: she might have feared total blockage and so had to find a new place. *Most importantly, a vacancy would have to have occurred in her new territory, and in fact, a coyote was picked up DOA, hit by a car not long before she moved. *The new territory is much wilder and has water nearby — it’s definitely a *step up* for her, which may also have contributed to her deciding to move. *Might she have wanted to leave her old territory to a youngster? This is actually what has happened, but was this by design? We don’t know. *Lastly, although I won’t know until all the DNA results are in from my population study, I have a feeling that her mate, Scooter, was probably originally from the new park — was born there — and it possibly is because he led her back there that they moved there. All these things were going on and may have contributed to the move, but ultimately, we simply don’t know why she moved, keeping her toe in the old territory, so to speak, by visiting almost every night.
Most of the coyote territories I know have been pretty stable over long stretches of time — years and years: the same owners have occupied the same areas for a while and there have been no indications of change. I’ve seen some territories occupied over a span of 13 years by successive generations of the same family: when an older mate passed away, the remaining mate paired with a new mate — sometimes their own offspring — and continued on the land.
I’ve also seen sequential families, one after another on various territories: either the previous owners left of their own accord — I get the impression this happens when their reproductive years are over — or the weaker older pair (and sometimes only one is left) is driven off by a younger, stronger pair. Still, what remains on any one territory has always been one alpha pair with youngsters who are born there and eventually leave. Intruders don’t remain, and interlopers have been few — I counted only one last year.
The long-time resident pairwho are not happy with the situationon THEIR territory.
However, I’ve been watching an exception this season. Interestingly, it seems that every generality about coyotes has exceptions. I’ve been seeing recent newcomers in one of the territories who now have passed through repeatedly and regularly. One is an older, scraggly fellow. Will he be allowed to stay as an interloper because he is old and unattached and therefore not a reproductive threat to the residents? I have seen very few interlopers to date here in San Francisco. We’ll have to wait to see.
In addition, there has been a new pair of coyotes that has been passing through that same territory regularly over the last month. The resident pair appears not too happy about this, marking and kicking up the ground angrily when they detect the odors of these intruders.
The long-time resident pair on this territory has two yearlings, and a number of 9-month-old pups born this year remain who all occupy that space. I’ve never seen coyote pairs share their territories — it’s unlikely to continue for long. In the end, only one pair will claim and remain in the area to raise their pups, and I would assume it will be the long-time resident pair, but of course I don’t know this — they’ll be living out their own stories and I hope to witness them to tell the tales.
These recent observations have been made entirely through field cameras which I put out only at night. I have not recorded what has gone on in this area during daylight hours, but I’m pretty sure the same thing, even if less frequently, as at night. Identifying individuals with infrared light, which is what the field cameras use, is very different from identifying them under natural light, but I’ve learned how to do so, and I can definitely identify all of these coyotes in this video. I put the field cameras out because in-person sightings have become more and more rare for me. I was hoping the cameras would at least let me know who was around, and they’ve done a little bit more than that!
The video consists of a number of the very short field-camera captures. You’ll see the older scraggly fella who is always alone, the intruder pair who look perfectly benign to me, but hey, they ARE intruding, and the angry resident pair revealing their wrath/disgust at the situation by sniffing, marking and kicking up the ground angrily — “How dare they come into our home!” Note that the resident coyotes have had these reactions in the past, but very irregularly, which I’ve attributed to the dogs who come through regularly during daylight hours. In other field cameras that I leave out all day, I’ve seen this reaction always to dogs who are also considered intruders by the coyotes. In this case, the reactions always occurred shortly after the newcomers had passed through.
Although I know territories which have been in the same coyote families for over 12 years, I also know territories with coyote ownership turnover. One dynasty ends, usually because the tenants can no longer defend their turf in the face of aggressive or continued intruders, be it due to old age, death of a mate, or even dispersal of youngsters who might have helped defend the area: youngsters can be forced out by parents who want room for their next litters, or they move on due to their own inner drives. Or maybe the territory just no longer has the resources necessary to support a coyote family.
Although I’ve seen coyotes move on to greener pastures and thrive after leaving a long-term territorial occupation, here is a case where the move did not bode well for the coyotes who left: within two months, we saw the departed pair wandering around the fringes of a shopping center, looking ragged, thin, angry and snarly. Their health had plummeted and and we feared their lives were coming to an abrupt end. We haven’t seen them again.
What happened to the territory of this departed pair? In this case, a female daughter and her younger brother were left behind — I’ve written about them before. After several months of seeing no one else there, two new males arrived and befriended the almost-3 year old female. It appeared that the female and stronger male might be bonding: both went off together for several months and we thought their life-long partnership was sealed. We saw younger brother a few times while she was gone but then he, too, left.
Female daughter before heading off with her beau
But then the female daughter returned, looking anxious and desperate, with constant darting glances of fear — her behavior was very different from what it had been previously. The two new male coyotes were with her, but it certainly didn’t look anymore like she was part of a “pair”. And then one day after a number of weeks, this female appeared no more.
The two males remain here and so, now, does their shy sister. These three are related — either two younger and one older sibling, or even a father and his two offspring: the two younger ones always move out of the way for the older one who seems to be a bit of a tyrant — from a territory only about half a mile away. I had been struck by the strong family resemblance between them and coyotes I had seen on the next territory over. Yes, family resemblances are amazing in some coyote families and have been the first “link” in leading me to further identify where certain coyotes came from and family connections! Reviewing my photos from that territory, I found these coyotes to be one and the same as those. I haven’t been back to their old territory to find out what’s going on there. These three would have abandoned their territory for the same reasons I listed above.
That they all came over together from one place is interesting. So they are still all “family” members, it’s just that there is no mated pair among them. Let’s see how their story develops over time!
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 
