Recordings for 1st Grade Hamlin
Coyote Yipps
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!
- Home
- Bio
- Coyote Eating Habits in SF: Gallery
- Coyote Voicings: Howls, Yips, Barks, & More
- My YouTube VIDEOS
- SF Families to 7/22
- Take A Short Coyote Survey
- Territories & Population in SF
- UrbanCoyoteSquared: GALLERIES
- *FIRST: A Guidelines and Safety Box
- Introducing My Coyote Yipps Blog
- San Francisco as Habitat and Place
- Contents By Topic
- Raising Awareness
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.
Contact: Janet@coyoteyipps.com
© All information 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.
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Talk Scheduled!
Be Aware of Denning Sites
Zoom Talk: Coyotes in San Francisco: Population, Family Life, Stewardship
(A crash course in SF coyotes!)
October 18th Presentation at PHS/SPCA: Inside the Lives of Urban Coyotes
(Another crash course in coyotes generally!)
Instagram: Coyoteyipps
Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there! As you all know, coyote fathers are very important in their upbringing: both parents raise the young which is very unusual in the mammal world. This dad spends time patiently guarding his almost three month old pups and engaging on their level, including allowing them to pull on his ears, and then begins another round of fatherly activity with his fifteen-month old yearlings who he continues to teach and accompanies on hunting excursions and intense play. Thank goodness for caring dads!!
Portrait 7. This is a son of guy in portrait 6 — one of four survivors in a litter that numbered seven that year. All four took over territories previously owned by other coyotes here in San Francisco where they became the alphas.
Fun. After intimate greetings, licks, and squeals at their early morning rendezvous, these youngsters spent an energetic frolicking time chasing each other, including flying over this fence. This type of fence exists in most of our open spaces here in San Francisco and not only adds to the atmosphere of these parks, but serves as a fantastic *break* from dogs for the coyotes. The coyotes, as you see, easily jump over them, while most dogs are hesitant of doing so. I’ve put four photos on one page because they are blurry — the action was too fast for me and my camera — but you can get the general idea of what went on.
Family interactions right after their greetings. This is a coyote Dad and two of his yearlings, excitedly fussing over each other, seeking body and psychological contact. Notice the siblings on top of each other in their effort to interact with Dad, and his use of his arms to maintain a little bit of distance and order. That’s Dad on the left. This is the type of interaction we humans might expect from each other after years of separation, but coyotes seem to engage in it after even only two hours of separation! The yearlings are now one year and 3 months old. Play and family bonds are still super-strong for them, even with a new 2-month old litter which, by the way, they help take care of!
Portrait 6. Early springtime. Male. Again, I’m posting these *portraits* so folks can see how different each coyote is. And the differences, of course, go much deeper than their looks: each is an individual and each is different, the same as people, dalmations, wolves and parrots. If you don’t know them, of course they all look and act the same. But get to know them — and I’m just talking about observing their habits and interactions without at all interfering — and each becomes unique and singular. Each family is also different.
The biggest issue surrounding coyotes in urban areas is pets, and this is doubly true during pupping season, which is now. Coyotes and dogs do not like each other — they each consider the other a threat, no matter how *nice* and *mild* or *unthreatening* the other might be. It’s the same relationship humans have with wasps: no matter how nice one of those wasps is, the fact is that we see them ALL as threats and want them gone. Same between dogs and coyotes.
Pacific Gopher Snakes can be three to seven feet long and are rarely seen here in San Francisco! I watched a female yearling pounce in the tall grasses and then fling this into the air. Right afterwards, she and her brother, who had been playing together exuberantly in the grasses (photo #6) were spooked by a dog. As they fled, the little female dropped the snake. After the dog left, both she and her brother returned to find the snake, but it’s her brother who found it, and this is him carrying the snake (photo #1). He began eating it when Sis approached, hoping to claim a share of what originally had been hers (photo 2). Photo 3 shows Brother letting her know that the snake was now his. There’s a rule in coyote culture: *finders keepers*: if you are holding it, it’s yours. So sister lay down in the distance waiting for him to finish and hoping to get any leftovers (photo 4). But that plan was nixed when another dog came by causing both coyotes to flee in opposite directions, Brother with the snake. Photo #5 shows him finishing up the snake. Nothing was left for her, but she had disappeared. Photo #6 shows the siblings happily sharing their fun until the snake was found. Fun is always shared; food is not, unless there are leftovers.
Portrait 5. Continuing with my portrait series, this is an almost one-year-old male in his first winter coat. He is the son of #4 and grandson of #3 — so here you can see three generations! In fact, I knew his great-grandfather in 2009, but never got a good image of him. This guy’s father abruptly disappeared from the family in January of this year, so his mother paired up with a new fella. They (his mom and step-dad) are around, but I’m not seeing them during the day where this guy now hangs out: they seem to have created a new denning area in a remote part of their territory, so we see this guy mostly alone. I’ve seen this situation a number of times, where a yearling appears to have been *assigned* to holding-down-the-main-old-fort while his parents have their new pups in a safer location. Be this as it may, we know his family joins him in the evenings because we hear multiple voicings during their evening howling episodes.
In the end, Mom transported and safely special-delivered five precious packages to what she considered a safer location. I call them *precious* because coyotes don’t *own* much except their territories and families. When you own so little (compare to humans) each of those items is worth a lot more, and worth protecting intensely.
Moving day for another family. This mom carried each of her pups about a half-mile distance, through the streets, hurrying around corners and disappearing quickly. There wasn’t much traffic on Memorial Day as dusk approached. Only a few people even noticed her. Each successive pup arrived about half an hour after the last one. Her mate did not carry any of the pups, but for one of those pups, he accompanied her both ways and was ready to defend her if any dogs came after her.
Portrait 4. Four-year-old alpha male in his full winter coat, son of portrait 3. The family resemblance isn’t so keen here, though when he was a small pup, I had trouble distinguishing them all. Then again, most pup siblings are really hard to distinguish until their uniquenesses grow large enough to see! I’ll be posting a number of his siblings, all offspring of portrait 3.
The adventures of a teeny tiny coyote pup on moving day. Maybe intruding dogs caused the move, or maybe it was just moving day anyway: I’ve seen a number of coyote mothers move their dens at this time of year, carrying the pups for distances of half a mile and more, often in the daytime, right down busy streets. Mom carries each pup in her mouth, one at a time, returning sequentially for each of the other pups, over the course of one or two days.
Be A Coyote Ambassador!
INTRODUCTION PAGES
- Introducing My Coyote Yipps Blog
- Contents By Topic
- Raising Awareness
- Take A Short Coyote Survey
- San Francisco as Habitat and Place
- UrbanCoyoteSquared: GALLERIES
- Coyote Voicings: Howls, Yips, Barks, & More
- Bio
- *FIRST: A Guidelines and Safety Box
- My YouTube VIDEOS
- Territories & Population in SF
- SF Families to 7/22
- Coyote Eating Habits in SF: Gallery
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Coyote Yipps 