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!
For some reason, I am unable to embed the original NYT article by Heather Knight with excellent photos by Loren Elliot, but am able to embed this version, which reproduces the text of the article but not the photos. Coyotes have been a source of controversy for a long time among residents of San Francisco: “we have passionate defenders and furious critics” as reported by SFiST.
Please note: too much space in this article was devoted to the very few preventable negative incidents (specifically the Crissy Field incident and then hunting for that coyote to kill it) and fear that a few dog-owners harbor instead of how coexistence is working, how people are coming to understand them and appreciate them, something about their family structure and family life, and some basic guidelines. Hopefully an article along these lines will be coming out at some point soon!
This article was printed in Ytali: Mondo, Cultura, Politica – Magazine Online diretto da Guido Moltedo. Basato a Venezia, città del mondo. Haruna Kamei became intrigued by our urban coyotes here in San Francisco, so she attended one of my talks and then contacted me. Her very complimentary letter to me, which she graciously has allowed me to reprint, is below, and her article is imbedded here.
Congratulations, Haruna, for spreading this information and the idea of easy coexistence globally!
My name is Haruna Kamei. I attended your presentation on Citizen Coyotes at the North Beach Library and found it incredibly informative and educational. Thank you once again for generously sharing your knowledge and research to help us better understand coyotes and how we can coexist with them. They are such beautiful beings, and thanks to you, I’m no longer afraid of them and feel better prepared for any unexpected encounters.
As I am a student studying Environmental Humanities and have been reflecting on multi-species worldviews beyond our traditionally human-centric perspective–on the balance between development and preservation, human comfort and the well-being of other species, and how technological advancements can support more inclusive futures–I find the reappearance of coyotes in urban environments particularly fascinating.
Could you help me better understand how coyotes, once extinct in the city of San Francisco, have made a comeback? If I remember correctly, you mentioned that the current population originated from a single pack and that all the coyotes within the city are essentially from the same family. Where did they come from, how did they get here, and is it even possible that siblings mated and expanded the population? In human terms, close inbreeding is associated with genetic issues–is this also a concern for coyotes?
Your presentation truly opened my eyes and deepened my appreciation for these animals. Thank you again for your dedication to educating local residents like myself, and I look forward to hearing back from you soon!
Hello Readers! Please be aware that I do most of my postings on Instagram lately. That is the better place to find updated photos and information generally about our San Francisco coyotes. It turns out that I’m using a *theme* on this blog which is no longer supported by WordPress. I will continue to write longer articles on this blog and I will work on transferring my materials to a new theme or new location, but I’m not a techy and this may take me awhile. Please email me directly if you have suggestions for an easy transfer of this site. Thanks, and I hope you will continue learning through my Instagram account. Janet
The behavior in this video lasted about five minutes. These two young adults chose each other as best buddies months before this. I’ve read where mating and the *tie* create the bond — I disagree. As I said the bond was created long before this. They expressed pure joy when greeting each other, with excited jumps, rubs, and falling all over each other. But the warm and caring pair-bond had been solidified way back in time.
Over the last week, it’s the female who has been initiating and soliciting sexual attention. She was excitedly running up to him, joyfully bumping and rubbing against his side and then turning and holding her tail to the side, inviting him to sniff and mount her. She was also communicating through direct eye contact, which happened frequently during the process. He hadn’t been following through with mating initially. This sequence continued for days.
And then I caught this video on February 24th. The process began as usual, but this time HE followed through and there was a *tie* at the end. When they finally separated — after a full five minutes — she excitedly bounced towards him and then did some intense twirling in an attempt to reach her vulva which was obviously distressing her. That soon dissipated and she ran off, with her guy following not far behind.
“To live like a coyote is to embrace both the joy and the sorrow of the journey.”Quote
This is a two year old male who recently lost his best buddy brother to a bullet. Traumas are accepted by coyotes and they move on.
Very aware his audience is watchingRe-burying his treasureLeaving the golf course, within feet of his audience
Click on the first photo to scroll through larger versions of each photo
Two days ago, this coyote was on the golf course in his territory, on one of the non-mowed interstices between fairways. He was hunting. He pounced several times but came up with nothing. Then he walked over to a spot and stuck his nose deep into the thick and long grasses there. He pulled out something the size of a vole and he began *toying* with it, the way coyotes do with their prey.
It took my blowing up the photos when I got home to realize that what that coyote was toying with was not a vole at all, but a torn golfer’s glove, an obvious treasure. Since he seemed to know exactly where it was hidden deep under the grasses, I assume he had buried it there — a treasure whose location only he knew.
So he toyed with his treasure as though it was a vole: he pawed at it, chewed it, tossed it in the air, pounced on it, rolled on it, caressed it. He was joyfully *into it* as several golfers stopped to watch. Then, after about 5 minutes, he calmly sauntered over to where he had extracted the treasure from the ground, and with his snout, he moved the grasses aside, placed his treasure as deep down as he could, and then used his snout to move the grasses over it. It was now buried again and ready to be plucked up when the urge to play with it arose!!
The entire sequence of events — from retrieving what he had hidden, joyfully playing with it, and then carefully putting it back — was purposeful and remembered. I have seen coyote cache food and treasures before: https://coyoteyipps.com/2020/11/28/caching-and-burying/
This is someone else’s post, but the information contained here is ever so relevant for us living with urban coyotes. Here Brittany talks about the behavior of a captive coyote: one who, through the circumstances of her life, regularly sees human beings.
This same behavior is very relevant for coyotes who live in highly dense urban areas: circumstances dictate that these coyotes also get used to humans simply by seeing them every single day. The two points I want folks to focus on are 1) the guarding behavior: this behavior is true of all coyotes. They might growl, or hiss, or try to escort a dog away from an area — often showing their teeth by raising their lip and wrinkling their nose — because there is something important there: maybe that item is a food source, maybe it’s a younger coyote, or maybe they feel defensive about their own space and boundaries. 2) Captive AND urban coyotes get used to seeing people and become comfortable around us: this is the definition of habituation. People believe coyotes should fear and flee humans, that this is their nature, but it is not. However, they seem to always retain their WARINESS of us — fear would be the wrong word to use. This is the communication they use towards dogs, even if a human is close by: they feel comfortable enough around us humans to do so.
This coyote in Brittany’s post is communicating her needs to Brittany. Although there is a fence between them, the coyote wants her to keep away. In a sanctuary situation, there is a need to get closer to the animals to care for them, but this is not the case in urban settings, where it should be everyone’s job to never approach them, especially if they have a dog. I’m hoping more people can start understanding this which is so well captured by Brittany’s video and her text — the two points about captive coyotes which also apply to urban coyotes.
“’To dream the impossible dream’ is a fitting sentiment to the bravery and trust you must have in your heart, artistry, and self, to achieve anything.”
Grace VanderWaal, a young, 20-year old singer and songwriter, has delivered a beautiful and moving rendition AND presentation of the song, with its powerful message to all of us, to fight for the right, without question or pause, to dream the impossible dream, and to reach for the impossible star.
Let’s make the world right for our animals. It might seem like an impossible fight, but we’ll win if we keep at it!
In the past decade, studies have demonstrated that urban and nonurban wildlife populations exhibit differences in foraging behavior and diet. However, little is known about how environmental heterogeneity shapes dietary variation of organisms within cities. We examined the vertebrate prey components of diets of coyotes (Canis latrans) in San Francisco to quantify territory- and individual-level dietary differences and determine how within-city variation in land cover and land use affects coyote diet. We genotyped fecal samples for individual coyote identification and used DNA metabarcoding to quantify diet composition and individual niche differentiation. The highest contributor to coyote diet overall was anthropogenic food followed by small mammals. The most frequently detected species were domestic chicken, pocket gopher (Thomomys bottae), domestic pig, and raccoon (Procyon lotor). Diet composition varied significantly across territories and among individuals, with territories explaining most of the variation. Within territories (i.e., family groups), the amount of dietary variation attributed to among-individual differences increased with green space and decreased with impervious surface cover. The quantity of anthropogenic food in scats also was positively correlated with impervious surface cover, suggesting that coyotes consumed more human food in more urbanized territories. The quantity of invasive, human-commensal rodents in the diet was positively correlated with the number of food services in a territory. Overall, our results revealed substantial intraspecific variation in coyote diet associated with urban landscape heterogeneity and point to a diversifying effect of urbanization on population diet.
INTRODUCTION
Urban landscapes are complex mosaics of biophysical properties that have been designed to support diverse human activities and requirements (Des Roches et al., 2020). Within cities, transitions in percent cover of impervious surfaces, building density, economic activity, and . . .
Video shows the progression of mange from none in June, and then the case progressing from September through December of 2024.
Just a few days ago, on January 9th, the Chronicle reported that: “Mange outbreak in S.F. coyotes poses risk to pet dogs, officials warn”. Please be informed that mange is transferred through contact, but it has to be through cozying-up or sharing bedding, which our dogs don’t do with coyotes because coyotes and dogs don’t intermingle. A chase, or a nip does not spread mange. I’m surprised that, yet again, both the Chronicle and our City departments have put out sensationalist and fear-mongering information without thoroughly vetting this. This is just more misinformation which will turn folks unnecessarily and wrongly against coyotes.
I’ve spoken to a number of veterinarians and rehabbers who have repeated the same thing to me over and over again. In other words, mange in coyotes poses little risk to dogs.
In addition IF perchance your dog gets mange, it’s easily treated because our pets have ready access to medication and care. This is not true of coyotes. However, I read in Wikipedia that “stressors influence severity and duration of the infection, and that most individuals recover from mange, which helps protect them from future mange infestations. For example, a lactating coyote may look terribly infected with mange, but will likely recover after the pups are weaned and the additional stressors on this coyote are decreased.”
From my own observations: The early signs of mange might be hard to detect in individual coyotes right off. They include crusty eyes, hairless tails and ears, and a sort of splotchy appearance. This progresses fairly rapidly to more and more hairlessness and crusty patches on the skin unless it is arrested by a prescription drug called Bravecto — this is something that can be given them in the wild without intruding or interfering in their lives, without trapping them or bringing them in. If the case is too far along, even this won’t help, and the animal might need a stronger drug called Ivermectin which MUST be given in two doses and with the right timing to work and normally is administered in a rehab center. Few people know coyotes well enough to notice mange in its early stages, and even now, with extremely furless animals, most people are simply reporting that they see very small coyotes.
I’ve watched a number of cases improve over a six to eight week period of time: the biggest improvement is the healing of crusty eyes and a fuller coat. It seems it takes longer for tail and ear fur to grow back.
You can see an improvement and healing of the crusty skin around the eyes.
We have had few cases at all of mange here in San Francisco since 2002 when coyotes suddenly re-appeared in the city after many years of absence due to our having killed them off. Last year, 2024 there was a sudden surge in the condition. From what I’ve seen, the infected animals seem to have came in from south of the city where we saw the first few cases. One of these individuals made it to a park in the heart of the city where he attempted pairing up with an old female whose mate had left her — possibly because she was getting old — I posted this in mid-January. That guy hung around for several weeks and eventually was chased out, but he was there with the family long enough to spread the mite. In mid-January and mid-February I posted images of this mangy fellow on my Instagram account. Long after he left, come May, the female who he had hoped to pair up with had contracted the mite so severely that I could barely recognize her: see the lower photo on the left below and then pair it up to her healthy look months beforehand. It then spread to four more members of that family. I continued to post about mange through the end of last year — my last such posting was in October.
I noticed that mange almost always spreads to family members: it tends to run in families because these are individuals who indeed do cozy up and share their bedding areas. I know several families where every family member has it. I also have seen individuals spoke off from their families and live alone: I don’t know if these individuals have been excluded from their families because of the mange, or if they themselves, in their very uncomfortable situation, went off on their own to better cope with the condition. There’s also the possibility that their leaving had nothing to do with mange. Those that are off on their own are yearlings whose internal call to disperse may have pulled them away from those families. But these individuals are hanging around the periphery of their birth territories for longer than I have usually seen.
So I know of four families that have passed the mite between themselves. But there are families that, so far, knock-on-wood, seem to be totally unaffected by it. In the past we’ve rarely if ever seen mange here in Francisco. Of the individuals I saw, I did not know who they were (they were not members of the families I had mapped) and they were soon gone, leading me to believe that they were dispersing individuals that made it into the city from the south, and then left again once they could not find territories here. It never spread in the city until last year, 2024.
The above healthy coyote photos are the same individuals as the ones right below them with mange.
Animals, too, are affected by fires. Many if not most animals are able to flee most fires if they aren’t aged or ill. And then they try coming back to their homes. I was made aware of this by photos sent to me by Erin Boydston years ago.
The fire in this video was nothing compared to the catastrophic fires occurring in Los Angeles right now, but it shows you a little of their behavior on a much smaller scale, and I think it’s a good time to share it.
Coyotes are very aware of even small changes in their environment. Here, something big has happened and they are checking it out, looking around, spooking, “tasting” it and marking it. It was not until several days after the fire that they would even approach the area. As time goes on, the change will be accepted as the way things are, but initially this is never the case where coyotes are concerned.
I was not there to see the fire as it occurred, and probably neither were these coyotes, or they might have tried putting it out in its early stages! Hope Ryden in her book, God’s Dog, on page 144 refers to an incident she witnessed whereby a coyote put out a small fire:
“Did you know that coyotes put out fires?” The man asking the question had been smoking a cigarette, which is what probably prompted the question to Hope as they observed a coyote. The man proceeded to set an envelope on fire with his cigarette and tossed it in the coyote’s direction. The coyote quickly “pounced on it, and began drumming the flames with her forefeet while bouncing on and off the blaze until only the edges still had sparks”. The fire wasn’t out yet, so the coyote, with its shoulder, pushed the scrap of paper with embers against the ground, then stood up to examine it, and repeated this again. The fire was now out. Apparently all coyotes put out fires — small fires. Wow!! [111008]
[I’ve reprinted this from a previous posting of mine because of the Los Angeles fires]
To insure her reproductive supremacy and exclusiveness, mothers get hard on their daughters. These videos show various versions of the same thing. It can begin as early as seven months and as late as two years, and sometimes the whole process is bypassed. It may involve steely staring, body slamming, and or constant put downs — all to impose dominance and control over the younger coyote.
In the most recent video, this one at the top, the behavior actually has been going on for months, but each time there seems to be a crescendo, with Mom keeping daughter on her back for longer and longer periods of time. These put-downs occur multiple times each day. I’ve been expecting not to see the daughter after these repeated episodes, but, so far, daughter has always appeared the next day.
One reason for this might be is that she is best buddies with her brother: they exude overwhelming joy when they see each other: possibly the attraction is stronger than the repulsion behavior from Mom. Today, in fact, neither daughter or the son was around, but this has happened before, for a couple of days, and then, surprise, they can be seen trekking through their area.
If the treatment by Mom doesn’t cause daughters to actually leave, it probably serves to increase cortisol from stress, which inhibits the production of female hormones. I don’t know the biology beyond this. In this case, the youngster then would stay and help raise next years’ pups.
Another thing I’ve seen is two-year-old daughters who have not dispersed develop swollen teats. It doesn’t appear that they produce any pups, but I can’t be certain about this. In this case, they could serve as wet-nurses, helping the mother to feed the pups. I can’t think of why else their teats would be swollen and extended.
Daughter in this first video is one and a half years old. I caught the daughter approaching in still shots, so the video begins with stills until I switch over to video mode. These put-downs have been lasting longer and longer — the video of the entire put-down lasted 8 full minutes.
Daughter in this second video, below, is only 7 months old. I wondered if she were showing dominant characteristics which might have caused her mother to beat her in this fashion. Interestingly, only a week after this video was taken, Mom disappeared and never returned. Although she might have been hit by a car or had some other fatal mishap, it occurred to me that she herself decided to leave rather than deal with a daughter she knew might take over. And in fact, her daughter became the alpha on her territory for the rest of her long life: 1.5 years.
And here are move videos of the same thing:
In this next video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M06O6tTP0kc], first you see younger brother taunting his older sibling. She’s not allowed to taunt back so she just defends herself. And that’s when Mom comes by and body slams her until she runs off with her tail between her legs.
This next video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mlk8b3E4DM] begins with body slams and then proceeds to steely staring by Mom. In this case, interestingly, when all was said and done, it’s Mom and Dad who left the territory because they could not make daughter leave. I’m wondering if something might have been wrong with her. Two suitors came by, but they ended up driving her out and forming a family with another female.
This video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G759qwLVI8I] is of the same coyotes as the video immediately above: Mom, two year old daughter and one year old son. I think son is simply copying Mom, and since he has her support and isn’t disciplined, he continues doing what Mom is doing: viciously attacking. Mom, of course, is attacking to drive her daughter out. In most cases, the daughter would definitely feel unwelcomed and eventually leave. Notice also the silent steely staring which is a hugely strong communication.
The purpose in all cases is to get daughter to disperse — to leave. There is room only for one alpha reproducing pair on any one territory. Here in San Francisco, those territories run about 2 to 2.4 square miles. In only one instance have I ever seen two families — two unrelated families — live on one territory, and this lasted only from birth of the pups until mid-summer. None of their pups survived which makes me believe that the parents were ill in addition to the mange they had.
I want to point out that family infighting is indeed intense, as seen in these videos, but it’s mostly psychological, along with some body slams and pinch/nips. As far as I’ve seen, the rank and dispersal issues leading to family infighting are qualitatively different from a battle with an outsider coyote (not with a family member), as, say, in a territorial battle. Below are some intense wounds from vicious territorial battles with outsider coyotes — all drew blood — and even a death (the last photo, under the flowers is a coyote whose jugular vein was severed by another coyote).
What a mess she looked! Photo by Doug Dunderdale
Addendum: An important piece of information that few people ever consider is the amount of stress and anxiety involved in dispersal. There’s often anger and hostility from the parents who are excluding these youngsters, but also the sheer fear of the youngster who don’t necessarily understand this about-face from their parents, youngsters who don’t know where to go, don’t know where they belong, are in uncharted dangerous territory and actually running scared from the unknown and from hostile coyotes and dogs. Yesterday, December 31, 2024, I came across two yearling siblings — one and a half years old — who had been expelled from their territory. They didn’t really want to leave, but you can see from the above videos that that is what they had to do. When I saw them, they were anxious and exhausted from the trauma. One ate grass and threw it up. The other plopped herself on the ground and went to sleep. We humans don’t often realize how sensitive and feeling coyotes are. They’ve been displaced, and have the same type of feelings we might have in the same situation. Here are the photos I took of them, a mile away from their territorial border:
January 11, Saturday 3 to 4:30 pm Golden Gate Valley Branch Library 1801 Green Street, San Francisco 415 355-5666
January 22, Wednesday, 6:30 to 7:45 Glen Park Branch Library 2825 Diamond Street, San Francisco 415 355-2858
February 15, Saturday, 3 to 4:30, Bernal Heights Branch Library 500 Cortland Ave., San Francisco 415 355-2810
March 1, Saturday, 3 to 4:30 Presidio Branch Library 3150 Sacramento Street, San Francisco 415 355-2880
March 12, Wednesday at Noon, Presidio, [Private Group]
April 1, Tuesday, 6 to 7:30 pm North Beach Branch Library 350 Columbus Avenue, SF 415 355-5626
Pupping season is fast approaching in April: it might be a good idea to learn something more about our coyotes than the very preventable dog/coyote incidents you hear about in the news.
I’ll be explaining coyote population structure and distribution, family life and interactions, and how to understand and diminish dog encounters — all based on my own observations here in San Francisco. I’ll also talk briefly about the coyotes in the immediate neighborhood.
First come, first serve, so be sure to come early to claim your space!
From my previous talk at the Park branch library: “The Coyote Lady”, Janet Kessler is a self-taught naturalist who has spent nearly two decades conducting daily field research documenting urban coyote behavior and family life. In this presentation, Kessler will share her first-hand information, compassion and love for the animals, as she tells you what you need to know about them.
Kessler will discuss where they are, who they are and how to get along. She will also describe what to expect if you have a dog and you encounter a coyote.
Documenting her experiences with a camera, Kessler has come to know and identify most of the coyotes and their families here in San Francisco. She has been able to map the general extent of each of their territories and some of their dispersals here in the City. Kessler has collaborated with Dr. Benjamin Sacks’ genetic lab at UC Davis where the DNA from scat she collected is being analyzed.
Video posted on NextDoor (see below) taken by a bystander who claims the coyotes in this video followed and then cornered a dog and walker . The video repeats several times, giving you an opportunity to see what happens.
Reports of dog/coyote incidents this year seemed to be up, including three small dogs killed at Crissy Field by a coyote. But are there more such incidents? Whether there are or not, all could have been prevented had there been fuller education and effective signage.
Take Crissy Field. Coyotes have appeared on Crissy Field regularly for many years. Lack of adequate signage, along with only a few reported coyote sightings during doggie play time, probably contributed to folks feeling that, since it was a designated *off leash* area, it was safe for their little dogs. But an *off leash* area means nothing more than that dog-owners are not going to be ticketed here for having their dogs off-leash. It does not imply that the area is free of coyotes nor necessarily safe for little dogs. Even in off-leash areas, an owner must always stay vigilant and constantly supervise their pets for many reasons: including danger from larger dogs an yes, coyotes — and children notoriously get nipped by dogs. Coyotes and dogs don’t like each other and don’t get along. Coyotes live throughout the entirety of San Francisco, so small dogs especially should never be left unsupervised wherever they are.
Because of the loss of 3 small dogs to coyotes in Crissy Field, coyotes became a political issue with pressure put on the City to do something about the coyotes. The city bowed to the pressure and went out and shot the coyote culprit, and signs have finally been posted in the area.
For months afterwards, some of the dog owners wanted more done than this. They banned together, vowing to keep the Crissy Field issue alive. They wanted *something done* about the coyotes: they wanted them culled, relocated, neutered — anything to diminish or get rid of them. They claimed that, because of more reported sightings and more reported incidents, that we were being overrun by coyotes. But I haven’t found evidence of this in the territories I keep track of.
When I’ve asked specifically WHERE in the city someone has seen *more* coyotes, they list several different places in the city where they have seen one or several, and then rely on the sightings by other people to support their belief that we are being overrun by coyotes who, to them, have become a problem. I know most of the coyote families and their territories, and I can vouchsafe that there are not more in the seventeen territories I know well: just one family per territory. Yes, sometimes the coyotes become more visible, and there have been regular *hotspots* which they frequent for stretches of time during the long denning season, but this doesn’t equate to an increase in their population. The population for each family/territory is a routinely fluctuating one, expanding during the pupping season and then shrinking back down to the alpha parents with often several yearlings lingering to help with the following year’s pups before moving on. Territories are owned by an alpha breeding pair and their pups and yearlings (yearlings are pups born the previous year) who generally disperse sometime before two years of age. Those who survive cars appear to move south and out of the city because all territories are already taken within the city proper.
As part of the effort to keep the *dangerous coyote* story alive, the incidents of the three dogs killed at Crissy Field were reported in at least four different newspapers. On NextDoor, there have been many postings of simple sightings informing folks to “please watch your pets” — these are valuable notices to people with pets. But these postings inevitably attract doomsday comments and opinions, many of them fear-mongering from people who don’t want coyotes here.
In addition, some mere sightings have been spun into postings of tall tales — on the same level as the runner in Marin who claimed to have been attacked by a coyote which turned out to be fabricated [https://coyoteyipps.com/2022/08/21/attacker-or-attacked/]. Some of the postings about coyotes chasing dogs and their walkers, or coyotes killing dogs, are simply not true, and I now wonder how many of these stories have been *enhanced* or totally made up. Since these are reports I’m seeing on NextDoor, I can image that the same reports are sent to Animal Care and Control (ACC). ACC does not vet what they hear — I know this from personal first-hand experience. So their statistics are not reliable: garbage in = garbage out. [Vetted: critically reviewed and evaluated for official approval or acceptance]
Here is one such posting on NextDoor which attracted a slew of fearful comments and misinformed speculations. Fortunately, as many commentators saw through to the reality. I hope folks are aware of these for what they are.
Martha: Edited • Saw this at 7:40am this morning. They were chasing and trying to corner a man and his 50 lb dog (seen towards end of video in yellow shirt). I walk my 12 lb yorkie after 9am for this reason and avoid walks after sun down. This is not the first time they’ve approached humans here. There’s a daycare 100 ft away, too. Near 18th St and Carolina St., between two apartment buildings. Edit: I was at the gym and noticed the man run across the paseo with his dog first. He looked concerned and was looking over his shoulder. At that point I suspected a coyote would show up and I took out my phone since my neighbors also reported seeing coyotes here. I didn’t expect to see two hunting together. I stopped my workout to go scare the coyotes but by the time I got outside they all were gone. Edit 2: The man did not stumble upon the coyotes. They followed him. I have a newer post that shows from my building’s security footage that they were on his tail.
Take a careful look at the video to see what is actually going on. Here is a fearful commentator and then my reply to her: Gloria: This is very scary. Coyotes are out of control in San Francisco. These coyotes obviously wanted that man’s dog. My reply: Gloria, “Obviously”? I think you need to look at the video again: the coyotes in fact are obviously AVOIDING the dog. When they see what way the man is going, they go the other way.
Gayle: 10/24 at 1:00am on De Haro & 17th Street someone’s dog was killed by two coyote’s who chased it into a corner and mutilated the poor pup. The sounds were spine chilling. I ran outside with a broom to help but the dog was already dead and being carried away. How is this acceptable? This is a city, not a National Park. I am an animal person all the way, but living with wild animals is NOT OK. We must call the police and complain. There are now 4 dens on Potrero Hill. I see them weekly now.
This is a third person reporting on a supposition or presumption, without checking out the details — and it was posted at least three times. There was a *sound*. No one saw an incident. I myself have heard raccoons emit spine chilling sounds when they are attacked by a coyote. No dog owner has come forth saying their dog was mauled or missing — i.e., this would have been a first person account. Few dogs in fact are out at 1:00 am in the morning, especially running loose, whereas this is prime time for raccoons to be out. So I’m doubting the report and calling it “garbage in” barring further evidence. But it has generated a large number of comments and amplified existing fears.
Botanical Garden Incident of June 30, 2024: In addition to the Crissy Field coyote/dog incients, we’ve had several instances of bad news over the summer concerning the coyotes. In the Botanical Garden at the end of June a coyote bit a small child at a daycamp. The repercussion from the City was to shoot three coyotes from one coyote family indiscriminately. I knew about the den there: I had seen Mom coyote lactating and the rest of the family come out at dusk for their activities. But the City denied there was a den there, and said the bite had been caused by a rare “aggressive coyote”. In fact many people, including the City, knew there was a den there, so my question to them was: Why were not denning signs posted? Why weren’t the camp counselors educated adequately? Precautions could have been taken to prevent such an incident, but were not. Then in the aftermath, we learned that THREE coyotes were shot. Why three, I had to ask. In fact, one of those shot was a three-month old pup: what other proof does the city want that a den was there?, but the City never corrected their misinformation, even though they knew the facts.
Lastly, and impressively, The Chronicle on October 30, 2024 in their article by Nora Mishanec entitled “Reports of S.F. coyote encounters exploded this year. What should the city do about it?” The article was sensationalist and fear provoking more than anything else.
The word *exploded* stands out, and implies a huge increase in both sightings and actual incidents., if not even an *explosion* in their population. The word *explosion* is most often associated with population numbers. Further reading shows there were 600 reports of encounters. C’mon everyone! This is less than two sightings/encounters a day in a population of 90 adult coyotes and a human population of 788K in 2024 and a dog population of over 200K. One has to question the newsworthiness of what the Chronicle writes, except to fan the flames of controversy and raise the level of fear. Here is the article for anyone interested: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/coyote-encounters-animal-control-19855206.php. There is also a map of the 690 sightings: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2024/coyote-sightings-sf/. I want readers to beware that these sightings have very little to do with the coyotes and their population, and much more to do with the few humans who decide they need to report them: most people don’t report sightings, but people who are afraid have been encouraging everyone, on NextDoor, to report these. Where groups of individuals are pressing folks to report these, of course, there are more reports.
What I’m trying to point out is that coyote sightings, coyotes looking at you, coyotes walking in your same direction across the street or even 30 feet away, should not be *alarming incidents*, and neither should coyotes following or escorting dogs. These things happen regularly and should be expected in an urban environment. Dog owners can keep situations from escalating by keeping their dogs from barking at or lunging at coyotes: these things incite coyotes to react negatively: walking on and away from the coyotes — without running — almost always de-escalates tensions between dogs and coyotes.
About My Site and Me: This website reflects my almost 20 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! I am a self-taught naturalist and independent coyote researcher.
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. What I’m presenting to you is the reality of their everyday individual lives. 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.
