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!
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.
Fall is coming along well. Lots of doings with the dogs patrolling properties as usual. We recently wrapped up a 3 week “investigation” into 4 coyote packs who were accused of livestock predation on sheep.
We worked with cooperating landowners, and some biologist students, as well as Ranchers.
This is progress, as historically the answer to sheep being killed is to hunt every coyote within 100 miles. This only leads to the surviving coyote booming in population, and never solves issues or give solutions.
I am proud of my dogs in helping clear accused coyote…though they don’t see it that way.
The sheep ranch sustaining losses is surrounded by a 5,000 acre Quail Hunting Preserve. Coyote have fairly large packs there. 4 distinct packs or family groups. They don’t affect Quail numbers. In fact, they removed feral cats that were affecting Quail introductions.
Proving coyote innocence takes time, skill, and impartiality. We WANT to be accurate and find the raider, who risks all local canids being suspect, ranch dogs, coyote, or wolves.
The Pack and I travel miles and miles and miles along tracks and trails. The dogs mark and leave scent as we travel, advertising our route. Of course, this greatly irritates coyote, but they come along after we move on. The marking insults between dogs and coyote are kept track of and studied.
Scat doesn’t lie. It is irrefutable proof of diet. All 4 packs of coyote, for 3 weeks, countered my pack with markings, scat, and vocalizations. Not a single wool encased scat.
Deer hair (deer hunter scraps or road kills) are in some, but overwhelmingly…all 4 packs show vole and gopher diet. And a few late berries and spawned salmon.
When we finally did locate wool encased scat, biologist students brought trail cams and liberally set up in that area.
Long story short, not a single coyote scat with wool for over 5,000 acres was ever found.
But it seems 3 pet dogs let loose in evenings are our proven suspects. Trail cam and scat proof literally from pastures to their country home.
It’s very easy to suspect coyote in pet or livestock raiding. And it does happen. But most people would be shocked…far more often…its unsupervised dogs killing livestock.
Summary: I’ve spent a lot of time filling in family details here, but the gist of what I’m saying is that we’ve had a single, long-term, nuclear family, owning one of the territories here in San Francisco, generationally now for four generations. At the beginning of this year, 2024, disruption was caused in the family’s tight hold of the territory when an alpha male, Scowl, left and the aging alpha female, Chert, headed into her twilight years, even contracting a severe case of mange at the end of her life. Another family came in and pupped here, but they did so without kicking out the resident offspring or weakened alpha female who had been here so long. Now, as winter 2024 approaches, that “intruder” family appears to have left, and it’s Chert’s offspring who again — without Chert — seem to have control over the territory: they are fourth-generation owners (and I’m not talking about 4th litter owners, I’m talking about a territory passed down from mother to son to his daughter and now to her daughter = four generations).This is the history of one territory over 20 years.
Our long-term alpha female, Chert, is no longer around, having reached the ripe old age of eleven and a half years. A daughter and son appear to be the new alphas in the territory — so we are stable again. But Chert’s last waning months led to a disorganized territorial situation!
Chert’s 2-year old son and daughter are behaving like the alphas now
A Little History: Chert’s story actually goes back to 2013 when she was born, and her family’s goes back to 2004 in this park. But it was in 2009 that I started focusing on the relationships of the individuals living on this territory at the time, and figuring out the extent of that territory. The territory is average in size for an urban territory. However, territories here in the city of San Francisco and most urban areas run less than half the size of rural ones, possibly due to a ready supply of food — it turns out that human refuse figures larger than thought [Tali Caspi, details TBP]. The territory covers four of what I call *pods* or *hubs* towards the center of the city — these are substantial parks — and only one family has owned it, generationally, for all that time: nuclear family members are the only ones ever seen throughout the extent of the territory, with the exception of very temporary suitors or dispersers. In San Francisco, we have approximately 20 territories — each about the size of the Presidio — each occupied by one family.
Above is the early genealogy I put together, showing how the family evolved: it shows that there has been plenty of inbreeding within this one territory. Dr. Ben Sacks, the geneticist at UC Davis assured me that inbreeding was not a problem as long as new blood eventually entered the scene, and it always has eventually.
In 2009, the territory was owned by a family that consisted of the Maeve, the alpha female, Toughy was the alpha male and there were two male pups — Silver and Bruno. Toughy’s life ended suddenly and brutally when he ingested rat poison before his offspring were weaned. A small dog suffered the same fate at the same location.
Maeve taught me a lot about coyotes, but mostly about the alphas total awareness and control of their territories: she knew every dog and their human, and she knew which dogs — most were off leash — were troublemakers. She would sit high on a knoll and watch the early morning activity, while at the same time keeping her eyes on something in the distance: it took me awhile to see that those were her pups over there hidden in the bushes.
Maeve with her two sons, Silver and Bruno in 2009
As these two pups grew older, they started their own little forays throughout the park. Over time, I watched these best buddies become arch enemies. It very obviously involved vying for the attention and affection of their mother. Bruno just wanted to get along, but Silver did not want him around and in the end drove him out with bites causing yelps of pain from Bruno. Silver then hung around and for two years romanced his mother who finally accepted him as her mate when he turned four. So for three years, we had no pups in the park, and a very young alpha male, yet this same family continued to own and control it.
In 2013, Silver and Maeve produced a litter of three pups. This was Silver’s first litter and Maeve’s second: Chert, Gumnut and Pinecone. Pinecone was not very social and kept to himself. I think he had a somewhat antagonistic personality because he was actually driven away by his father and Chert. I wondered if Chert might have been retaliating from some sort of mistreatment by him: yes, coyotes keep score!
Chert on the left and her long-time mate Silver. They were together for 7 years until he passed away.
So the two remaining pups, Gumnut and Chert, became inseparable best buddies. I thought they were going to disperse and find a new territory together, but it was not to be. Their father, Silver, had other plans. Silver began breaking up the bond between the two: he incessantly put Gumnut down and hovered between the two siblings to keep them apart, all the while showing great fondness for Chert and putting up with her teasing naughtiness which normally might have elicited harsh disciplinary action. At the same time, Gumnut became extremely submissive — he was doing everything he could to remain on the territory and close to Chert — he wasn’t allowed to show any dominance over Chert — or Silver would land on him by forcing him onto is back in submission. Of course, this caused Chert to value Gumnut even more.
In the Spring of 2015 a singleton pup was born to Chert. Gumnut was still around, hanging in there: his affection for Chert had not waned. But that summer was the last time we saw Gumnut — he had been driven out by his father. The family now consisted of Chert, Silver and the singleton pup I named Scout. Of high interest is how inordinately severe Silver was on Scout: it seemed whenever he saw her, he charged at her aggressively and forced her on her back. Chert would console her whenever Silver was not around, until one day in January of 2016, at just 9 months of age, Scout had had enough and left home. Another point of interest: I normally see Dads driving male youngsters off, and mothers dealing with the daughters — not so here.
This is the earliest I’ve seen a youngster disperse — most don’t do so until after their first birthday. Could Silver tell that Scout wasn’t his own offspring? [Monica Serrano, details TBP]
Although the relation was not mutual to begin with and had been forced, with Bruno gone, Chert and Silver remained committed long-term mates and owners of the territory through Silver’s old age. Chert stuck with him until his end, which was January 2021. They produced litters throughout the years with some of them dispersing to become alphas within the city: Sparks ended up as alpha male in the Presidio; Vida ended up as alpha female in the Buena Vista Area; Scout at Bernal, Gumnut ended up as alpha male in the Lake Merced area [Monica Serrano, details TBP].
After Silver, passed away, there was a vacancy: suddenly Rookie, an older male appeared on the territory in 2021. He was not liked by Chert or her yearlings, as could be seen by their their distressed vocalizations, and then over time, keeping their distance from him and not including him in their grooming sessions. Of consequence is that the six offspring produced that year had light colored eyes, just like Rookie’s. But Rookie knew he was not liked. He didn’t fit in and he ended up abruptly leaving and moving on to Golden Gate Park for one year (before leaving again — I’ve not seen other instances of this).
While Rookie was still with the family, Chert began grooming one of her yearlings as her next mate: this was a strong message to both: Rookie: “you, go”, and to the yearling: “you stay”. Scowl was one of seven pups born in 2019 to Chert and Silver. To get Scowl to stay she began lavishing constant attention on him. Indeed, he stayed, becoming the alpha male and father on that territory for two years, and producing two litters with his mother, Chert.
Chert (2013 to 2024) turned to her son Scowl as a mate a year after her long-term mate died, and right after her unhappy pairing with Rookie that lasted less than a year (2019- )
But after two years, and actually even before two years, he was feeling wanderlust. [I wrote a posting on changing mates which you can find HERE if you are interested.] Today’s posting is focused on the long-term ownership of a territory and its disruption when the strong hold by the alphas is in someway disrupted.
Scowl left Chert after raising two litters with her. He paired up with a two-year-old female only one mile away: here is one of the four pups they produced in 2024
Scowl left Chert and the territory at the beginning of 2024, this year. I’ve wondered if his instinct to disperse finally caught up with him, or possibly if Chert was losing her pull through diminished hormones: this last is a thought I had without any proof. He appeared in a territory only one mile away where he paired up with a daughter of the previous alphas from that territory, Vida and Cape at Buena Vista who had both been killed by cars in 2022 before their pups were grown. But interestingly, the Buena Vista territory remained in the family with their offspring, which is not always the case: I’ve seen territorial takeovers by absolute newcomers after an intense territorial battle when strong alphas aren’t around. But this did not happen here.
Falcon 10-2023ArcherIntruderRagsTawny
Above: Chert’s 2024 suitors — HERE is a posting I wrote about changes in mates — in fact, most coyotes — in spite of their famously being known for *mating for life* — appear to go through a number of mates in their lifetimes, some of them long-term and some less so.
Back to Chert and what happened to her territory: Chert must have had enough luring hormones because she attracted five suitors in early 2024 after Scowl left (actually, one before he left). The first three were quickly driven away. The next — Rags — had mange. He was accepted and hung around for several week. Unfortunately, months later we noticed that he had passed his mange on to the rest of the family — it’s highly contagious.
Screenshot
Bottom row: family after driving Rags out; top left: the steely stare for emphasis letting Rags know he can’t come back; middle above: rags hurrying away; top right: rags looking back, knowing he has to go.
Then, several weeks after accepting Rags into the family, yet another new suitor appeared: this was Tawny — a new fellow for that time frame, but he looked familiar to me and could have been a returned family member from way back in time who I had lost track of — familiarity would have caused her to choose him, Tawny, over Rags. I then watched as Tawny, Chert and her yearlings viciously drove Rags out. I’ve seen this before: the guy forced to leave looks back knowing that he must go, and he never returns. But even this new arrangement — Tawny and Chert — didn’t seem to last long as I’ve not seen Tawny since before any pups were born.
Chert, Bibs, Tug and Root all came down with mange. It probably led to Chert’s death. To show how disfiguring mange can be, I’m showing here images of Chert without (above) and with mange (directly below) — Chert’s case is one of the worst I’ve seen. In the center column, Bibs is seen without and then with mange: she recovered. Then Tug on the right: before and now with mange. [To see the drastic change in appearance in dogs from mange, click HERE]
Unfortunately, mange spread through the family. Come June, we saw in this territory, Bibs (Chert’s two-year-old daughter who now had mange) with another female who was so disfigured by mange that I could barely identify her except by some minor markers — her eyes and face were completely crusted over. This would be Chert — based on her behavior and sticking to her favorite hangouts — mange really changes their appearance. BOTH females — Chert at 11 years of age and Bibs, now two years old — were lactating. I’ve seen this double-lactating phenomenon before, suggesting the daughter was either a wet-nurse or, potentially, it was an actual double-denning situation. What appears to lead to this double-lactating condition is a disruption in the alphas: and indeed that happened here with Scowl leaving and Chert aging. Tawny, Rags AND Scowl had all been around during mating season, and NONE of them were around to raise the pups, so I don’t know who the father was, but both Chert and Bibs were definitely lactating. However, another thought occurred to me: I wonder if in their reproductive cycle, their teats might enlarge even when they haven’t produced pups and aren’t lactating. If anyone has information on this, I would love to learn about it!
The OTHER, intruder family: Amberson (Dad) on the left; Eyes (Mom above right seems to have recovered from mange); Two of their pups were found dead.
The alpha disruption appears also to have led to a weakening of Chert’s family’s hold on the territory: strong alphas have absolute control over their territory, but with aging and illness, and no alpha male around, this might not be possible. So yet another pair of non-related, foreign/intruder coyotes came in and took up residence in the main hub of the territory — within just several hundred feet of where Chert and Bibs were, where they had their litter of pups. Interestingly, Chert and her daughter and younger brother were not driven out by them, conceivably because the newcomers themselves were not a strong pair, and were not familiar with the situation: they had arrived shortly before their pups were born, perhaps having been driven out from another area and desperate for a denning site. The female of this pair also had mange. I don’t know how mange in parents affects their offspring, but two of their very young pups were seen with neurological disorders and eventually found dead.
So a sort of *coexistence* existed between these two families in the same hub that lasted through the early summer, with vocalizations between them confirming their presence to each other. And in another hub or pod of the territory — where I had only ever seen Chert and her family — an ADDITIONAL new litter surfaced, reported to me, but I didn’t have time to check them out,. This should tell us a lot about disruption of the alphas. As winter approaches in late November, I’m only seeing ONE pup occasionally, and frankly I don’t know whose it is.
Yearlings from Chert’s last two litters retain the territory. It looks like Chevy and Bibs, two year old littermates have formed a pair bond. Their littermate Root is still there. Tug is still there, but with a hefty mange condition.
Things seem to have returned to normal now that winter is fast approaching, with just Bibs and two littermate brothers — Chevy, who appears to have become her mate and one other, Root — along with a younger brother, Tug, now living on the main hub of that territory and one additional pup born this year whose parents I’ve not been able to yet identify. This could change quickly and I’ll update if it does.
Over the years I’ve been sent photos of coyotes on Angel Island, but I’ve never had the time to check them out. I was even brought some scat for my scat study, but, most people don’t know what *fresh* scat looks like, and what I was brought was definitely not fresh, so it was not included in my study.
I was told that possibly coyotes swam over, crossing the shortest part of the bay at what’s called the Raccoon Straight. I’ve always been skeptical of this, but, wow, there’s a photo in this article that shows a coyote swimming from Angel Island to Tiburon, so indeed it is possible. I’m including the article which appeared in Bay Nature, by Jillian Magtoto because I found it fascinating! Enjoy! And thank you Staci Hobbet for sharing this with me!
I’m writing this in the wake of all the dog/coyote incidents that have recently been in the newspapers. I want people to know that there is more to coyotes than just that, that coyotes are fascinating as individuals and as a species because of their intelligence, personalities, family structures, and land management, among other things. Here I dive into some of my observations of them and share some telling photos.
Dad bantering with his pups: many if not most coyotes mate for life and both parents raise the young.
Coyotes are our fellow citizens here in San Francisco — a *citizen* being someone who lives in the city — a denizen of the city. They are living in and sharing the same neighborhoods we do. We share this urban environment with lots of wildlife, even if we humans want to predominate and dominate the scene. According to Brandon Keim [in “Meet the Neighbors”, page 13], in this setting, “what makes us human is not what makes us different from other animals, but what we have in common.” Brandon writes about the “personhood” (his term) of animals and indeed, it’s knowing and appreciating them as individuals that helps break through some thinking barriers we’ve been handed down through the ages, including through science.
Raising the young is a lot of work: this mom moved her pups three times for safety reasons: here she is carrying one of six pups, 1/2 mile, through the streets of San Francisco, to a safer location.
In this vein, my own view of coyotes is anchored in my hours of *focused observation* which has led to my feeling of commonality and empathy with these critters, in spite of the obvious superficial differences that we usually focus on. Animals, as we, in fact are thinking and feeling in a much deeper way than most people have imagined.
Coyotes communicate constantly through eye-to-eye contact and body language: including intentions and moods.
Through hours of observing them, I’ve come to see coyotes as living parallel lives to our own, similar to the Hobbits who are *over there* in the shire, mostly invisible to us humans, but living very equivalent lives to our own, within their territories and family structures, and functionally doing what we humans are doing: trying to survive and eke out a living in an often inhospitable outer world, but also within a an often rich social context that constitutes their/our closer inner circle. When that social context is broken or missing, it affects them no less than it affects us.
Coyotes’ basic social unit is the nuclear family: both parents work for a living by hunting and defending their turf, and both parents raise, defend, and provide for the young, while yearlings pitch-in with all of these duties. They live on their exclusively family owned territories, keeping all outsider coyotes out. We have about 20 of these family-owned territories that cover the entirety of San Francisco (see map]
Litter mates become best buddies or sometimes bullies: every family is unique and different.
Coyotes are highly social, highly interactive, and highly communicative, and many if not most famously mate for life, and they also engage in individual activities — hey, not different from ourselves: they play, they hunt, they have parties (most evenings the family congregates for its rendezvous), they celebrate (yes, I’ve seen it!), they tease, they defend, they go exploring. Their relationships vary from simple companions and like-minded buddies, to bullies and rivals, to peacekeepers, caregiver and comforters. Mom and Dad are always at the top of the hierarchy, and just as in our own families, there often is sibling rivalry and vying for superiority within litters and even between litters.
They communicate vocally, with sounds that vary from yipps to growls, squeals, hisses, grunts, purrs, moans and screeches — these range from barely audible to overpoweringly loud! And they communicate silently through odors and pheromones — for example, scent marking their boundaries — and silently through body language and subtle eye-to-eye-contact and expressions. And from what I’ve seen, it’s every bit as nuanced as our most carefully chosen words and the entonations we use, if not more so.
They display the same full range of emotions that we display, from joy, enthusiasm, affection, excitement, to boredom, pain, rejection, sadness, jealousy, anger, oneupmanship and even deception (even though that’s not exactly an emotion). They love to tease each other.
This coyote is acting sad and rejected: she’s been taunted, shunned and excluded. Their emotions seem to be extremely intense, and are very obvious when watching them (which is why it’s so much fun to watch them, if they allow you to)
Their bodies respond to the environment no different than ours. There is physical pain from thorns and bugs, and from bigger injuries from lost eyes and tails and broken legs and crippling diseases such as mange. Some of these are accidents and illnesses that weaken and compromise their ability to live. This is all the stuff I’ve observed repeatedly through hours of first-hand observations and then written about on my blog, but besides observing this stuff, isn’t it just plain logical that this would be so?
Here one sibling is removing ticks from her brother: family members take care of each other through mutual grooming.
They deal with death and they deal with birth, their own and others’.
*Science* is only now agreeing more and more with the view that animals are much more intelligent and feeling than science admitted in the past. Brandon Keim’s book talks about the intelligence of bees, the friendship of snakes, puzzle-solving turtles, etc, and science is indeed confirming these. One has to wonder why *science* is just now *getting* this, when focused observations by anyone makes it all so obvious. Science upholds a hierarchical order of things passed down from ages past, putting humans at the top. We don’t like to see our characteristics shared with others.
Science is rooted in observation. Repeat observations allow us to form generalities. However, science itself has had to reverse some of its proclaimed truths. We drank milk when I was growing up because we needed calcium. Now we know that milk actually leeches out the calcium from your bones. Long established underlying scientific principles should always be questioned. I’ve approached studying coyote behavior not with the idea that *they aren’t like us until proven otherwise*, but rather with the idea that *they ARE like us until proven otherwise*.
Sometimes life can be as much fun while being alone as being together: here a good rubbing on something smelly — I call it a perfume bath — seemed to create overwhelming joy for this coyote!
Galileo applied mathematics to experimental physics. His mathematical methods were the standard ones of the day, but he was condemned for pointing out that the sun, and not the earth, was the center of the universe because that broke long established conventions about where man stood in the world: that we humans weren’t at the center of the universe with everything revolving around ourselves and our religion. This was anathema!! I think we’re still grappling with this hubrustic concept. I don’t see much difference between this and the idea of anthropomorphizing — a concept where we attribute human characteristics — including intelligence and emotion — to animals, as if humans were the only ones with such characteristics.
Coyotes tease and horse around all the time: here one slipped under another and lifted her on his back where he left her to dangle for a moment. They can indeed be very funny — and they themselves think this is funny!
In sum, having empathy for, and being able to relate to other animals, grows connections and understanding whereas dehumanizing or objectifying these animals [it has been argued that these are one and the same: https://blog.apaonline.org/2018/08/02/is-dehumanizing-animals-possible/] — makes it easier for us humans to dominate and persecute coyotes and other animals as dangerous or mindless/stupid enemies without feeling bad or guilty about it. What we don’t know engenders fears in us, and we destroy what we fear and what we relegate to a status below ourselves. People end up filling in what they don’t know with rumors, hearsay, unvetted conventional thinking, or a single experience from which they generalize. There’s more to learn about coyotes than simply the issues of dog/coyote encounters that have hit the newsstands.
More sharing of overwhelming fun and silliness, contact, and togetherness.
On an ending note, in THEIR contexts, in fact, they are smarter than we are: try sniffing out WHO passed through your turf yesterday, or simply REMEMBERING everything you need to without writing it down, like elephants do!
On the left, siblings who used to be best buddies have become arch-rivals. On the right, a father coyote uses scare tactics to get a dog to leave: these tactics can often be intense, insistent, and persistent, especially during the denning seasons, which is what makes them so scary. If it weren’t so intense, we would not listen. And herein lies a problem with humans and their dogs: humans want to always control situations, not be controlled by other species. We get around it by calling them aggressive, but they aren’t, they are simply demanding what they need.
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.
