Coyote Yipps

Updated 2025 map of coyote territories in San Francisco

Introduction: It might be fun to get to know something about your very own neighborhood coyotes! My documentation has always been on this very basic, primary building-block level, starting with the individual coyotes. And my information has also been conveyed, individually, to folks in the neighborhoods where I have been documenting the coyotes — after all, these were THEIR coyotes. Mine is very much a grass-roots endeavor. As you can see from the map, coyotes cover the entirety of the city of San Francisco, so you DO have them in your neighborhood.

I begin this posting by describing my approach — a *from-the-ground-up* approach. I then summarize some generalities and quirks about the different territories. Finally I list and sum up what the coyote situation is on each of the territories. And for a some, I even provide histories and links for further reading. Getting to know the whole picture will help you understand your own neighborhood coyotes better. I ask that you act as stewards for them: they are your neighbors and need support in the face of continued misinformation, sensationalism, and fear spread about them. Thanks!!

MY BACKGROUND AND APPROACH: How I came to know our SF coyotes. This is a question I have been asked, so here, I’m diving into it for you!

My friend Audrey saw this map when it fell to the floor and asked what it was. I told her it was my map of coyote territories in San Francisco. She enthusiastically responded that she maps her bird territories: that it began by her simply noticing the same scrub jay in various places and then seeing another scrub jay and where he went. One never appeared where the other appeared, and the two never appeared together. It’s from this that she began mapping some territories of the birds she watches. This is exactly how my studies began in 2007.

I’ve come to know the coyotes of San Francisco one at a time as unique individuals. Not anonymously, not as numbers, not just as a whole species. I give them names based on characteristics or events that will help me remember them — it’s easier than numbers, and it confirms their individuality. This is the cornerstone on which all my information is built.

I am able to distinguish and identify each coyote by its facial features, and sometimes by the way one carries itself or their behaviors. As I’ve stated so often before, each coyote is unique and distinguishable — as much as each human is — however, like in human families, there are family resemblances for which sometimes detective work is needed to tease out the differences! I am a self-taught naturalist and not an academic which gives me the freedom to follow leads I come up with without having to write them out in a proposal, or wait for peer review. 

Academics rely on metrics. For many of them, if it can’t be measured by a human-made device or formula, it doesn’t exist. So, interestingly, my information doesn’t exist for some of them. Rather than lab work, statistics and numbers — which is their MO — my information comes from watching coyotes out-of-doors in real time and reveals what coyotes are like: it’s accessible, hands off and non-intrusive, not rarefied, real, and accurate, and can be verified with DNA from scat or photos — few academics know coyotes well enough to actually distinguish individuals, much less all the individuals and families in the city.

By watching and documenting them every single day (through a 650 mm equivalent lens), I’ve developed a very good understanding of them: their behavior, family life, individualized relationships (with its ups and downs), family structure (in its variations), along with their disaffinity for dogs, and their aversion to humans (though not necessarily *fear* of us). I’ve also developed easy guidelines for coexistence, based on real-encounters and seeing what works.

In turn, and by the same token, having the ability to identify individuals, and knowing their families and family dynamics, has allowed me to map their family territories and to follow their histories on those territories. What follows is a summary of their current territories and situations as of summer 2025 here in San Francisco. I’ve brought up to date a couple of their histories, and supplied links to their past stories (for two of the families).

Interestingly, years ago, the City brought in an *expert* who proclaimed that the city of San Francisco could only support 5 to at most 7 coyote families. Yet I’ve documented three times that many. This year, in 2025, I know 18 different nuclear families and the territories they exclusively claim, and I’ve seen the pups on 15 of those 18 territories — and there could be several more territories that I’ve missed.

Obviously, I’m not present 24-7 in any of the territories. In fact, most of the families I now see only glancingly every couple of weeks or even months. But others I’m more in-touch with, sometimes even seeing them daily for long stretches of time and then less frequently for equally long stretches of time.

When I see them, I might see them for as long as a couple of hours, morning and/or evening, OR I might simply cross paths briefly with a couple of them which gives me only a few minutes of catch-up observation time. The point is that none of these histories is complete. I’m presenting them as I have seen them through limited time frames. But it’s over 18 years of everyday observations that I’ve accumulated what I know about the nature and structure of family situations and their territories.

Here, I have updated my territorial map from when it was first posted in 2021 (and then updated in 2024). See: https://coyoteyipps.com/2021/07/14/territories-and-population-in-san-francisco/. There are 18 exclusive coyote-owned territories in San Francisco that I know of. Allowing for my missing some, I’ve rounded this out to 20. There could be a few more that I’ve missed, but there are not fewer. These territories cover the entirety of the city of San Francisco. 

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THE MAP I’ve created.

I’ve circled most territories in red, a couple in blue and an undefined couple in black. Some of these territories have remained fairly stable over the years — in terms of location and extent — however, they’ve all endured some form — minor or major — of disruption since I started studying them in 2007, so that in some cases, new families have taken over, or in other cases boundaries have been somewhat reconfigured, or territories have actually been divided. And I’ve even seen *shared* territories.

The 18 territories circled in red are confirmed territories. All 18 (except Territory #9) are claimed by an alpha mated pair. Most, but not all, have one to four yearlings, and so far, I’ve seen the pups in 15 of those territories, with litters ranging from 3 to 7 pups.

Before listing the territories and their current situations, here are some individual territorial generalizations and quirks I’ve noted.

Unusually, one of those territories overlaps slightly with another (Territories #10 and #11) — I haven’t figured out the dynamics here yet, but two different, adjacent families travel some of the same corridors regularly. In another, two adjacent families (Territories #4 and #5) appear to be on high alert at their shared border, apparently to maintain where it is.

The *boundary* between the families in Territory #13 and #14 has shifted since 2018 from substantially west of Crossover Drive, to substantially east of the same roadway, and now stands right at that point. Each family has pushed its boundaries — as do all coyote families — but then been pushed back by the adjacent family. It’s a continual process and I think is determined by the stronger physical strength or willpower of a family at any one time. I’ve heard the distressed vocalizations between adjacent families as they’ve worked out their boundaries, which makes me think that the sparring and boundary disputes or confirmations are mostly vocal and not physical. This of course isn’t always true: I’ve seen a number of blood-drawing battles, and an in-between approach where hostility was used to drive a newcomer away. See: https://coyoteyipps.com/2024/05/22/recent-territorial-shift-in-golden-gate-park/.

This year and last year, two of the territories, Territories #1 and #2, and Territories #3 and #4, were expanded, divided, reconfigured, and branched off by sibling-offspring of the original territory. In both cases, those sibling-offspring are now parents on what has become their own defined territory. Yes, inbreeding occurs routinely in coyote families with no visible adverse effects so far, unless weakened immune systems and mange can be linked to it. Each of the reconfigurations was caused by different circumstances and situations.

In the larger circled family, Territory #9, the alpha parents themselves disappeared at the beginning of this year, so there are no new pups there this year that I have seen. The parents’ disappearance appears to be due to mange: two coyotes with severe mange were seen sporadically in the territory for a while, but it’s extremely difficult if not impossible to identify a mangy coyote who I at one time knew when it was healthy, especially when I didn’t see the condition progress. I never did identify them in this condition first-hand. People sent me photos, but there were never enough pixels for me to actually identify them. As do many injured or sick coyotes, they avoided being out in the daytime during this vulnerable time. So, blatantly missing in 2025 from this territory are those parents who for six years had been the ever-present and very visible alphas, while the four yearlings born last year along with one two-year-old remain as the territorial owners, holding down the fort. This fivesome of siblings continues to patrol and mark the length of their territory to keep it safe for themselves. If another mated pair moved into a remote corner of the territory, they may have had pups, but I have not seen this.

Some of the territories involve sagas of long lasting family dynasties which are passed down over five generations (as in Territory #1 and Territory #3). Others are more short-lived, changing hands every couple of years, either peacefully ending their generational ownership of the land (as in Territory #9 in 2019), or forced out by a decisive territorial battle (as in Territory #3). In some cases, as in territory #14, the female has remained the alpha, while she has shuffled through a new male sometimes every year, sometimes every other year: death is often the cause, but so is *divorce*. The divorced male has frequently remained with the family and behaved like any other yearling. And one family, after years of occupying a territory, suddenly up and moved — BOTH alphas and a yearling — to a territory 5 miles away (from Territory #12 to Territories #6 and #13). This last one ended in divorce of the alphas with one moving back to the original territory, and the other remaining there, each with a new mate. I’ve seen a divorced and replaced male stay with the family as if he were a yearling.

A couple of the territories I’ve kept pace with solely through field cameras (Territory #6): it’s enough to capture some behaviors, including the arrival of pups, and shows turnover when it occurs.

In two instances — within one, and next to another territory — I’ve circled areas in blue. These have been claimed by loners who haven’t seemed to interact almost at all with members of the larger territory — at least for extended periods of time.  For example, at the very western end of Territory #14, there has been one loner individual with mange who has hung out there for 2 years. He actually was (is?) part of the larger family but seems to have split off a couple of years ago to that farthest outpost within the territory. A younger brother of his would visit him sporadically, but otherwise there was no real interacting between him and that family that I saw. Having said this, beginning in mid-July, 2025, for the first time in two years, I saw that family’s alpha female — Mom — in this outpost area and now I’m seeing the rest of her family there, so temporary situations seem to exist in these territories, and I wonder if the loner has been a sentinel holding the territory for the family? Also, I’m wondering if the family moved back to that area because of the huge concerts going on in Golden Gate Park in August: there is tall cyclone fencing throughout the park and the noise and crowds are tremendous during the weekends. In the other blue circled territory, Fort Funston, there is one individual that has hung out alone regularly — no other coyotes ever appear there, just him. The same situation may exist here — I don’t know the *why* of these situations, just that they exist.

I’ve summed up a bunch of dispersal stories in this posting: https://coyoteyipps.com/2020/10/04/some-dispersal-routes-and-family-situations-over-the-last-several-seasons/.

The thin black circles are where I have not kept up — so these are unconfirmed territories, and there may be several more. There are never enough hours in a day for me, one person, to keep up, though I’ve generously been sent sightings and sometimes facial photos from some of my very loyal supporters which has helped me immensely! I don’t know the situations for the thin black circles except that coyotes have been seen sometimes regularly and sometimes sporadically in these areas. I have not zeroed in on them enough to identify them or their relationships, though I know they are there.

🐾 Interlopers and Floaters. We also have had a few interlopers over the last few years — these are, unusually, loners without territories, living on the edges of others’ owned territories.. One was lame and old and possibly this is why he was allowed to stay; he did quite a bit of roaming. Also, I’ve seen mangy individuals and pairs hanging around the periphery of claimed territories, sometimes for several months before finally moving on. And occasionally an unknown coyote — unknown to me — turns up in someone’s backyard which I can’t identify: I assume these are dispersing youngsters who haven’t found homes within the city and will probably have to move south and out of the city. I often don’t identify pups until I see some kind of permanence in their situation, which should explain why some of the coyotes are unknown to me.

In summary, some of the territories have been geographically stable for years, and some have been slightly — but never drastically — reconfigured. However, some of the famlies on them have changed — in some, there has been a turnover. Most are claimed by mated pairs and most of these had pups this year.

As for population size, please remember that population numbers fluctuate over a year’s time and indeed have increased somewhat over the years incrementally. Like a breathing bellows: population grows during the pupping season, and then shrinks back down based on low pup survival rate, those killed by cars in the city (this comes to about 25 to 30 per year) and dispersals of the older youngsters. The adult population hovers under 100. Rounding this out, the ballpark numbers come to just about 20 breeding pairs or 40 individual breeding adults, plus an average of two yearlings on each territory (some of course have none, and some more) — these yearlings have remained to help raise the next litter and will soon disperse. In addition, there are just about that same number of pups born this year as there are adults — the pups who surmounted their low survival rate and being hit by cars, also will disperse sometime during their second year, and — as far as I have seen — they will most likely head south and out of the city because, most territories are already taken in the city itself. 

BTW, I read a Chronicle article stating that sightings reported to our Animal Control Department had increased to 600. I mean, really, what does this mean? It doesn’t at all reflect anything about the population size, family structure, territories, or even “encounters” with dogs. Sightings are reported randomly by some people and not others — in fact most people don’t report their sightings. If reported sightings have increased, it would be due to many factors, including easier ways to report these, and being recently prompted to do so on social sites such as NextDoor. Starting with the COVID shutdown in 2019, many more people acquired dogs and started using the parks: more eyes out there translates into more sightings and possibly more reported encounters because of that increase in dog numbers. Let’s see, to put this in perspective: there are 365 days in a year, so even if the number of sightings were double what was reported, it would mean 3 sightings a day throughout the entire city. I myself — one person — see more than this every single day. But that number: *600* makes it falsely appear that there are many more coyotes or encounters, and that we’re being overrun by them. Not so.

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THE TERRITORIES and SOME HISTORIES that I’ve documented, with photos of the reigning alphas.

🐾 Territory #1 includes five full neighborhoods including the highest hills in San Francisco. This is where my coyote family documentation began in 2007, with a coyote named Myca, who *owned* both Twin Peaks and its vast surroundings. [For a 2024 summary, see: https://coyoteyipps.com/2024/11/25/long-term-territorial-stability-recently-disrupted-but-retained]. And, by the way, DNA testing in 2019 showed that all of San Francisco’s coyotes (up through 2019) descended from just four original founders who began repopulating the City in 2002. [More on that: https://coyoteyipps.com/2020/02/28/my-sf-coyote-dna-study-continues/] and [https://coyoteyipps.com/2013/04/26/history-for-the-record-how-coyotes-arrived-in-san-francisco/]

Chert had been our long-time alpha here since 2014. In the vacuum left by her death last year (2024), her offspring Chevy and Bibs — sibling littermates — now three years old — paired up and claimed part of the land. This spring, they had their first litter. Meanwhile, Scowl (Chert’s son-turned-mate for 2 years before he left her) returned with his new mate, Bonus, to reclaim the other portion of Chert’s territory. The once-unified territory now has two households:

• Scowl & Bonus hold the larger Territory #2.
• Chevy & Bibs command Territory #1.

Through all the upheaval, the land has remained in the same family line for nearly two decades:

Myca (2007) → Maeve (2009–2013) → Silver (2009–2021) → Chert (2013–2024) → Scowl (2019–present) → Chevy & Bibs (2022–present) — with new pups born in 2025 to both branches.

I’ve followed and photographed all of them across these 18 years.

One last note: I continue to see Scowl regularly interacting with other coyotes whom I suspect are his dispersed offspring. I catch these interactions on infrared cameras. Although I can’t identify them individually, the presence of more than just the one family suggests that some family bonds endure, even after dispersal.

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🐾 Territory #3

Territory #3 was claimed in 2016 by Scout who dispersed from Territory #1 at nine months of age. Most dispersals I’ve seen here in San Francisco have taken place later than that, during the second year of life. Territory #3 had been unoccupied since the previous alpha was killed by a car a couple of years earlier. You can follow Scout’s running story on my blog, or here is a fairly complete summary: https://coyoteyipps.com/2022/12/21/scout-winter-solstice-catch-up/; https://coyoteyipps.com/2023/04/23/scout-moving-on/. Her update to 2025 can be read here: https://coyoteyipps.com/2025/05/05/scouts-saga-continues-an-update/

The Long Reign of Scout, in short. Scout’s story spans nearly a decade. Born in Territory #1, she dispersed at just nine months to vacant Territory #3, holding it as a solitary queen for three years before being seen with a male companion. Challenges came — most notably a half-year battle with a stronger female who tried to take her land in 2019 — but Scout persisted and regained control of her territory. Over the years, she raised litters with two different mates, shifting den sites and even expanding temporarily into nearby ground in 2022 (to Territory #4). Through all of it, she kept her grip on Territory #3 for nine straight years.

A Daughter’s Coup in 2025. This year, at age ten, Scout met the challenger she could not drive out: her own two-year-old daughter, Lapis, born in 2023. Lapis refused to disperse, standing her ground even under her mother’s repeated attempts to intimidate her. Eventually, the standoff ended with Scout’s departure — her own daughter had taken over the territory — poetic, in a way, after what Scout herself had endured.

Scout has moved back to Territory #4, where she had pupped in 2022, and has been steadily expanding that range. Her push has forced the current resident family there — the mange stricken Clip, Dude, and their two yearlings — to shrink back to a reduced Territory #5. They, too, had pups this year, but the mange has weakened them, and may be the cause for them giving up the expanded area they used to occupy.

Back in Territory #3, Lapis now rules alongside her littermate-turned-mate Bold. The pair became parents this spring, marking the fifth generation of the Territory #1 line — the same lineage that produced Bibs and Chevy in Territory #1. And, as with Scowl in Territory #2, there is regular visiting between some of the individuals in Territory #3 and Territory #2.

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In territory #6, change has been constant. [For their earlier history, see: https://coyoteyipps.com/2021/01/10/family-interrupted-update]. Since I first began observing this territory in 2014, one family after another has taken over. In 2024, Clipped and Tubetail and their yearlings all showed up with mange. Nevertheless, Clipped was lactating heavily this spring, showing that she had given birth to pups this year. However, in June of this year, 2025, when their pups would have been only 2 months old — a new family of coyotes suddenly moved in and this family is no longer there. I wonder if the pups got mange and might not have survived? This is a family I keep track of with only a field camera at a hole in the fence which has been frequented daily by all family members, allowing me to see the changes and growth of families without being there.

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Territory #7 has been far more stable. Alpha parents Pipa and Blondie have been in place here since 2019, raising litters every year. I watched Pipa grow up in Territory #8 where she was born in 2017, and I watched Blondie grow up in Territory #9 where he also was born in 2017. This year, in 2025, four of their yearlings have stuck around to help raise the newest litter of three pups. It’s one of the larger families.

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In territory #8, Wired and Sparks have ruled since 2021, after Wired’s first mate, Puff disappeared. Less than two years before this, when Puff was Wired’s mate, Puff and Wired battled the old, widowed previous owner of the territory, Petra, driving her out and replacing her. This year the family consists of Wired, her mate Sparks of 4 years, one yearling, Cricket, and Wired had SEVEN pups this year! Cricket’s brother, Spider, is the coyote who was tragically shot in Crissy Field in September 2024 for grabbing three small unleashed dogs. An earlier write-up of this territory can be found here: https://coyoteyipps.com/2023/07/08/sparks-update/, and an update to that can be found here: https://coyoteyipps.com/2024/05/01/catching-up-on-sparks/.

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Territory #9 saw an abrupt change in 2025 when long-time alphas Cai2 and Stumpf disappeared early in the year, leaving four yearlings and one two-year old behind. These five youngsters are holding down the fort well without any alphas over them. Galileo, the yearling female, very well might become the next alpha female there unless the territory is invaded and taken over by a stronger pair. The story is a continuing one, as are they all.

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Territories #10 and #11 share an arrangement: two families whose borders actually overlap. Mango & Heart had pups this year as revealed by Heart’s swollen mammary glands in the spring, while Scrub & Cactus along with their yearling, Sand, own the territory right next to AND overlapping theirs. For now, they manage to coexist and share some of their corridors.

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The once wide-ranging “gypsy” bloodline that anchored territory #12 is gone. Its most notable member, Monte (aka Carl), is gone (see photo), but the lineage continues elsewhere through their offspring, in Territory #13, and in Territory #12. You can read their story and see photos here: https://coyoteyipps.com/2020/05/15/till-death-do-us-part/. Monte was shot by the City in 2021 for bearing his teeth to a child in his denning area. His and Ma’am’s son, Cape, remained there with his young mate Vida (born in Territory #1), but both parents were killed by cars within a few months of each other in 2022, leaving 7 month old pups behind who indeed remained there for a while. The daughter, Bonus, in fact paired up with Scowl (after he divorced Chert) and raised one litter of pups on this territory in 2024. The territory has been vacant since Bonus and Scowl returned to Territory #1 in 2025. But we are beginning again to see occupants here this summer!

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Territory #13. Fille and Flick are the alpha parents here, with two yearlings. They had four pups this year. Last year, three members of this family were tragically shot by the City in the Botanical Garden when a young day-camper was nipped by one of them. For years this had been a denning area, yet there were no signs, education, or precautions in place. Denning areas are notoriously protected by all members of a coyote family. In this case, a child in a butterfly costume went into the bushes where a coyote was resting, as she hurried away upon seeing the coyote, she tripped and fell, and that’s when she was nipped “on the bum” as her mother said. Three coyotes were shot for this, including a three month old pup. Fille was shot, but managed to survive the ordeal. Both Fille and Flick were born on this territory from a line that extends back in time through Tarn & Monte, and Pink & OM, so this territory is another one encompassing a family saga. https://coyoteyipps.com/2024/10/30/catastrophic-handling-of-the-botanical-garden-coyote-incident-is-examined-by-dan-noyes-of-abc-news-october-29-2024-with-sound/

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Territory #14. The alpha parents Amber and Scarf controlled the territory as of April, along with their two yearlings, Splash and Dew. In fact, Amber has held the territory for many years, shuffling through males fairly regularly. Amber’s two-year-old son, Archer, has kept to himself at the very western end of the park over the last two years — could this be because he and only he became afflicted with mange? I don’t know. Amber and Scarf had four pups this year, however, sometime in April Scarf seems to have disappeared. Am I just not seeing him, or is he really gone? I don’t know. New fellow, Polo, is hardly ever seen, but he was at the densite guarding, so he seems to have taken over the alpha male role. Also, one pup was found dead in July and I’m hoping the loud and crowded summer concerts are not behind his death.

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Territory #15. Brick who has been the alpha dad for a number of years (along with him previous mate, Eyes), has a new mate this year, Poppy; both have been afflicted with mange and Poppy is encumbered with a continuing limp. I don’t know what happened to Eyes or to her offspring who are no longer around. And I’ve not seen any pups this year, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I will update as I find out more.

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Territory #16. Alphas Mak & Mari own this territory alone, without any yearlings. Both of them have different degrees of mange, with HER case being the worst of the two. I assume there are pups, but I have not seen them. Mari continues with her long-time limp.

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Territory #17. Pico, the alpha female on this territory was nursing pups through May, but no pups or yearlings have been sighted and I’ve not seen (or even been able to identify) Dad — he appears not to be around any longer. I’ll update as I find out more.

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Territory #18 A thriving family with pups continues to claim this territory, but my observations have been minimal at this location. I will update with photos soon.

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?? Unnumbered question marks: Coyotes are seen here pretty regularly, but I haven’t had time to confirm who those coyotes are or their relationships.

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Taken together, these territories each have elements of stability and change, with the two weighted differently for each territory — some families appear to be deeply rooted and entrenched on their territories while others may last only a couple of seasons before changes are seen — all are part of the quiet, ongoing family life of the city’s wild residents of which few people are aware beyond the encounters they report.

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© All information, maps, and photos in my postings come from my own original and first-hand documentation work which I am happy to share, with permission and with properly displayed credit: ©janetkessler/coyoteyipps.com.