North Beach residents spotted a sleepy coyote enjoying the view on a rooftop last week, and it was long gone when Animal Control officers arrived at the scene.

SF Animal Care and Control shared photos on social media Friday of a coyote that the agency nicknamed “Woof on a Roof” lounging on a large rooftop in North Beach.

“This coyote found a perfect place to sun himself in North Beach,” says the caption. “Peace and quiet, warm sun, no interruptions, just a nice, secluded spot to nap.”

By the time officers arrived on the scene, the coyote had already found its way off the roof.

“After catching up on some sleep,” says the post, “the coyote must have headed down to street level, well-rested and ready to start the evening.”

As SFist reported last year, coyotes have made a huge comeback in San Francisco over the past 20 years after being previously eradicated. The New York Times speculated that the first coyotes simply walked from Marin County, but perhaps they also swam. It was discovered last fall that several coyotes have swum a mile from Tiburon to Angel Island, and at least one coyote was believed to have swum two miles from Angel Island to Alcatraz in January.

It should also be noted that it's currently pupping season, which runs from spring to fall, and coyotes may become aggressive toward humans and pets.

Animal Control can be reached from 6 am to midnight at (415) 554-9400. Coyote sightings can also be reported on the agency’s website.

Related: NY Times Dives Into the Whole SF Coyote Debate, Says They Probably Got Here Just By Walking From Marin

Image: SF Animal Care and Control/Instagram

The latest crazy coyote behavior in the SF Bay Area is that coyotes are swimming the more than one mile between Tiburon and Angel Island, and apparently somewhere between 14 and 17 coyotes now call Angel Island home.

We’ve known for years that the probable reason that San Francisco has coyotes again is because they probably walked here from Marin County across the Golden Gate Bridge. Now Angel Island park officials have observed another very unexpected coyote behavior.

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A post shared by Angel Island State Park (@angelislandstatepark)

SFGate had a report this weekend that Angel Island park staffers saw a coyote swimming from Angel Island toward Tiburon, a distance that is more than a mile. That report goes into more detail that the first coyote was observed on Angel Island in 2017, and that there are now an estimated 14 to 17 coyotes on the island, where there had never been any observed prior to eight years ago.

The Instagram video above has some commenters giving guff that the park personnel didn’t do more to help the coyote, but park staff dismiss that. “Coyotes are good swimmers,” park interpreter Casey Dexter-Lee told SFGate. “We try very hard not to interfere with natural behaviors of wildlife whenever possible, as long as it’s not in conflict with the visitors. We let the animals do their thing.”

KQED has better video of the coyote swimming, and spoke to California State Parks environmental scientist Bill Miller, who took the video. Ironically, Miller was boating out to Angel Island specifically to work on a coyote research project. “I’m going out there to look for coyotes on camera, and then here just to see one, swimming, it was pretty fun,” he told KQED.

The coyote in the video did not swim the whole way to Tiburon, and instead turned around about one-quarter of the way and headed back to Angel Island. Park staffers aren’t sure why.

But they do know that the first recorded coyote got there in 2017, and would howl at the coyotes over in Tiburon. Another eventually swam over, they had a litter of pups, and the population has now grown to an estimated 14 to 17 coyotes.

There are plausible theories on why the coyotes would make that swim to Angel Island, and even stay there permanently once they had. The island had a large population (some would say overpopulation) of raccoons and deer, for which coyotes are predators. Those populations have decreased since the coyotes’ arrival.

But that’s just one theory. "Maybe coyotes want to go somewhere else," California Department of Fish and Wildlife ecologist Bill Furnas told KGO. "Young coyotes want to set up new territories and they are dispersing."

Related: Video: Li’l Coyote Pup Rescued After Falling Into Bay at Fisherman’s Wharf [SFist]

Image: This coyote passed by these ducks without scaring them, absolutely beautiful to see. (Getty Images)

The SF coyote discourse can get pretty hairy, and the NY Times has a new feature on our complex relationship with these canines, with surprising new details on the Trump administration stifling research to explain the coyotes’ occasional aggression.

Coyotes in San Francisco are one of those topics that seems to turn everyone into either a passionate defender or a furious critic, not unlike the topics of swings on Bernal Hill, ficus trees along sidewalks, or whether certain streets should be car-free. And people who own dogs have reason for bitterness against the coyotes, even though dogs and coyotes are both species of canines. There may be more coyote controversy in the news in the weeks and months to come, as we are back in coyote pupping season, and the aggressive coyote behavior that can come with that.

Today’s New York Times examines the SF coyote debates, in a feature that boasts some absolutely sensational coyote photography. Much of what the article covers has already been pretty well-documented in the local press: Sam Altman’s coyote problems at his mansion, Brock Purdy’s run-in with a coyote while filming a John Deere commercial, and how the coyotes got bolder at making themselves at home on SF streets during the pandemic.

While coyotes had been eradicated from SF in the early 20th Century, they’ve made a return in over the last 20 years or so. The Times notes that DNA specialists have concluded they probably just walked here from Marin County via the Golden Gate Bridge, a conclusion that has also previously been covered in the local media. And the coyotes’ return has wrought hard feelings, after one aggressive coyote bit a child in Golden Gate Park in 2021 and then again last June, plus a spate of coyote attacks on dogs at Crissy Field last autumn.  

But the Times has some fascinating new information on those Crissy Field coyotes, including details on the hunt to kill one aggressive coyote there. They also note that coyote’s body is still in a freezer here in SF, as its necropsy to determine the roots of the aggressive behavior has still not happened a full eight months later. The Trump administration's firings of federal workers have put that necropsy in limbo.

The Times also gets some quotes from the famed “coyote whisperer” and self-taught local expert Janet Kessler. Though the Chronicle reported last October on the controversy of Kessler’s unconventional methods, which often involve unauthorized flyers, and her ongoing antagonism with SF Animal Care & Control, as Kessler and that department trade accusations that the other is intimidating the animals.

Controversies or not though, there is consensus that the coyotes are helpful to SF’s overall ecosystem. Their predatory habits do a lot to keep the local rodent and feral cat population down, which limits the spread of disease, and helps protect birds and reptiles by keeping that feral cat population in check.

Related: Curious Coyote Wanders Onto Pink Triangle In SF [SFist]

Image: @PhiSteveO via Twitter

Photo: Simon Hurry

DNA tests determined that it was one single coyote who’d killed three dogs at Crissy Field and the Presidio since September 15, so National Park officials killed that coyote Sunday, as it had been getting pretty aggressive with people too.

The coyote attacks on dogs in San Francisco parks have seemed a little more frequent than usual this summer and early autumn, and three dogs were killed by coyotes at Crissy Field in the month of September alone. And while this may not be perfect overlap of the same three dogs, DNA testing by National Park Service (NPS) biologists connected one single coyote to having killed two dogs killed at the Presidio since September 15. Those same biologists strongly believe that same coyote also killed a third dog attacked there since then.

And how did NPS biologists get that coyote's DNA sample? They shot him. SFGate reports the NPS officials killed the male coyote on Sunday, after determining with high likelihood that this was the coyote behind three fatal dog attacks. This coyote had a distinctive scar that made it easy to recognize.

“In keeping with established wildlife management practices, NPS and Presidio Trust biologists made the difficult decision to lethally remove the animal in consultation with state and local authorities,” Golden Gate National Recreation Area spokesperson Julian Espinoza said in a statement to SFGate.

And the male coyote in question had rung up quite a recent history. On Tuesday, October 1, park officials had received a “half dozen” reports of incidents of that same coyote charging dogs, and even charging a person, while also coming uncomfortably close to a group of people. These are not typical coyote behaviors.

Park officials say that people had been feeding the coyote, and even encouraging unleashed dogs to go near it. This is likely what tempered the coyote’s natural resistance to interacting. And while much of Crissy Field is a designated off-leash area for dogs, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should leave your dog off-leash in coyote-populated areas.  

“Even if your animal is distracted by seeing a coyote, it means it will return to you, and reliably,” Presidio Trust wildlife ecologist Phoebe Parker-Shames told SFGate. “And if it can’t do that then you shouldn’t have (your dog) off-leash.”

Related: Coyotes Have Killed Three Off-Leash Dogs at Crissy Field So Far This Month [SFist]

Image: @presidiosf via Twitter

It has become increasingly dangerous to bring your (smaller) dogs to Crissy Field, and if you let your dog off-leash there or elsewhere near the Presidio, it could prove deadly.

Dog owners in SF should be on high alert as the wild coyote population in the city seems to have grown and become more bold around people. As KRON4 reports, three dogs have been killed by coyotes so far this September at Crissy Field, and one dog owner says she was "nearly attacked" by a coyote as she protected her dog.

"All of a sudden they are being really really bold, and they are too comfortable with people because people have been feeding them," says Martha Walters, chair of the Crissy Field Dog Group, speaking to KRON4. She adds that both Baker Beach and Crissy Field have become "hunting grounds" for the coyotes in search of smaller prey.

And we should clarify that while coyotes do typically go after smaller breeds, they have been known to attack larger dogs, especially when they are hunting in a pack.

In early August, five coyotes worked as a pack to attack and kill a smaller dog at Baker Beach. And also in August, a coyote attack on a dog was reported in the Presidio Tunnel Tops park.

Walters's group is asking the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) and the Presidio Trust to establish a real-time database of coyote encounters, so that dog owners can stay informed when coming to the area. The Crissy Field Dog Group has now filed a Freedom of Information Act request in order to get this data.

"My biggest fear is some little kids getting attacked. Nobody wants that. So I just think it's imperative," Walters tells KRON4.

Coyote attacks on humans and children are very rare, however there was a recent, aggressive attack on a child in Golden Gate Park. A five-year-old girl who was with a group of children in the SF Botanical Garden was attacked and nipped in the butt by a coyote in June — an incident that led to three coyotes in the park being euthanized.

And there was a similar incident in which a coyote appeared to be stalking toddlers in the Botanical Garden in June 2021.

The GGNRA has posted signs around Crissy Field warning dog owners not to let their dogs off-leash, and park officials say they will be taking measures to scare coyotes out of the area in the coming days.

Still, as SFGate reports, some dog owners are outfitting their dogs with spiked vests to protect them from being snatched by a coyote.

In addition to coyote encounters in Golden Gate Park, in the Presidio, near Stern Grove and at the beaches, coyotes have also been seen in and around Alamo Square Park, which also has a popular off-leash dog park.

Previously: Five Coyotes Ganged Up and Killed a Small Dog at Baker Beach Thursday Morning

Photo: Hannah May

The San Francisco coyote discourse may be about to get more contentious, as a pack of five coyotes surrounded and killed a small Pomeranian dog early Thursday morning at Baker Beach.

San Francisco’s relationship with its increasing population of urban coyotes was already strained by a late June incident where a coyote chased after and bit a five-year-old girl in Golden Gate Park’s SF Botanical Garden, which resulted in state Fish and Wildlife officials shooting and killing three suspect coyotes. Now there may be more tension around the coyote situation, as NBC Bay Area reports that five coyotes attacked and killed a small dog Thursday morning at Baker Beach, despite the couple who owned the dog being present at the time of the attack.  

The incident happened Thursday morning at around 7:15 am at Baker Beach. The dog was a three-and-a-half-year-old Pomeranian named Peter, and his owner Justin Rivard said there were three dogs playing in the sand when the five coyotes surrounded them and attacked.

“I just remember seeing teeth and a very dominant body position,” Rivard told NBC Bay Area. “They surrounded us. They made a semi-circle around us. When I tried to grab [the dog Peter], they grabbed him, and the two others jumped at my partner and tried to get the dogs from his arms.”

Rivard reported the incident to the National Parks Police, as Baker Beach is part of a national park and is considered federal land. The Presidio Land Trust then contacted Rivard and said the coyotes may be frequenting the area because of a nearby homeless encampment they allege is a source of food and trash for the coyotes.

“There’s so much litter up there and so much food for the animals,” Rivard added. “With the quantity of food that’s available to them, they’re just going to keep their ground and establish dominance over this area.”

But it’s unclear who has jurisdiction over encampment-clearing at Baker Beach. The Presidio Trust told NBC Bay Area they did not have that authority, the National Park Service and Golden Gate National Park Conservancy both did not return comment to the station.

As a reminder, SF Animal Care & Control encourages dog owners to pick up and carry small dogs when they see a coyote, and to keep dogs on leashes in areas where there may be coyotes, even in off-leash areas.  

Related: Three Coyotes Shot and Killed After Aggressive Coyote Attacks Child In SF Botanical Garden [SFist]

Image: @ascoma via Twitter

It's the second time in three years that a coyote has menaced a child in the San Francisco Botanical Garden, and this time the animal bit the child. Wildlife officials responded according to policy and euthanized three animals.

The incident happened Friday during a supervised summer camp session. As the Chronicle reports, a five-year-old girl was playing in some part of the San Francisco Botanical Garden around 11:15 am when a coyote came up behind her and bit her.

Her mother, Helen Sparrow, describes it to the Chronicle as, "She started to run, she tripped and it bit her on the bum when she was down."

The young girl was treated for her wound, and taken to the hospital to have it stitched — and a rabies vaccine was recommended, though doctors say coyotes rarely test positive for rabies.

Officials with SF Animal Care and Control and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife reportedly swabbed the area of the girl's wound in an attempt to collect DNA as well, hoping to identify the offending animal.

As a result of the incident, the SF Botanical Garden was closed to visitors all weekend, but it reopened on Monday morning.

The Chronicle later added to its report, confirming that Fish and Wildlife officials shot and killed two coyotes in the Botanical Garden on Saturday, and a third on Sunday, hoping that one of these is the one that bit the girl. Rabies and DNA testing will now occur on all three, and if there is no match with the DNA collected from the bite wound, further action will likely be taken in Golden Gate Park.

Patrick Foy, a captain in theDepartment of Fish and Wildlife's law enforcement division, told the Chronicle Monday, "If a coyote or bear or mountain lion attacks a person, those animals are euthanized."

It's not clear if the area in the Botanical Garden where the incident occurred has some notifications around it, or if it remains open. Spring is coyote pupping season, and it's a time when coyotes become aggressively protective of their dens — making them dangerous to small dogs especially.

But this is also not the first time that a coyote, in this same time of year, has become aggressive with a child in the Botanical Garden.

Something similar happened with a different coyote in late June 2021, and that coyote repeatedly emerged from some woods and appeared to stalk several small children who were there with their mothers.

One of those mothers was Monique Pflager, who works as a wildlife rehabilitator with the Coyote Project in the Marin Headlands. As she told SFGate at the time, "I’ve never seen such a healthy coyote that wants to go after healthy kids."

The mothers who witnessed that coyote's unusual behavior said they believed the coyote would have bitten child if it had the chance. That animal was ultimately euthanized about two weeks after that story came out.

Now we have another coyote behaving in a similar manner, and succeeding in biting in a child, in the very same part of the Golden Gate Park. It seems that some part or parts of the 55-acre Botanical Garden are desirable to coyotes as denning areas.

Previously: Coyote That Charged Toddlers In Golden Gate Park Was Euthanized

Photo: Lance Anderson

This post has been updated throughout following news of the euthanizing of three coyotes.

Since late December, a pack — or at the very least a pair — of coyotes have been making regular nighttime noise in and around Alamo Square, even though sightings of the wild dogs remain few and far between.

While coyote sightings in Alamo Square Park are not new, the chorus of coyote howls coming from an unknown number of animals is new — and I can say this having been a resident of the area for over a decade.

One Xitter user posted a blurry photo of a coyote on one of the paths in the park on December 27, and three nights later, I recorded the sounds you can hear on this video around 11:30 p.m.

Like clockwork now, several times a week, presumably the same coyotes make noise like this — especially if there is a distant or not-too-distant siren going by, just like siren-loving dogs.

"They don't have TV so, they have to entertain themselves somehow," jokes Deb Campbell of SF Animal Care & Control. "They like to sing."

The number of animals can't really be assessed, and multiple officers at Animal Care & Control referred me to the "beau geste effect," in which the sound of just one or two coyotes can sound like many. Let's just say it's definitely two, but sounds like at least four or five.

A bit of alarm has been raised, naturally, on Nextdoor, with one commenter saying, "These wild animals do not belong in an urban environment. Somebody sooner for later is going to get hurt."

Well, the coyotes are pretty harmless to humans and tend to stay away from us, but people with small dogs certainly have reason to be concerned.

Campbell says that coyotes' "assertive" behavior can sometimes be mistaken for aggression, and the animals tend only to get aggressive or protective around pupping season, when they have a den of pups to protect.

It's not clear whether these coyotes have established a den in or near Alamo Square, and the distinctive howls have moved around a bit. Animal Care & Control says it is trying to discourage den activity, especially in residents' overgrown yards.

There is, notably, an off-leash dog park on the western side of Alamo Square Park.

"People should not be alarmed about the coyotes, but they should be aware of the animals, avoid the areas where there is known activity when walking dogs, and read and follow instructions on signs placed in active coyote areas," says SF Animal Care & Control.

Coyotes also don't often stay put until pupping season — and they have a huge range. Animal Care & Control has tagged and collared some animals and observed them traipsing from Bernal Heights down into San Mateo County and back again all in one night.

And even Sam Altman, the millionaire CEO of OpenAI, was complaining last month about a coyote who wouldn't leave his yard in Russian Hill. So, they're getting around.

Because it is coyote mating season right now, Campbell says, the coyotes may be especially visible, and the department has received "several calls and sightings" from around Alamo Square recently.

Campbell tells SFist that anyone who has a coyote sighting should report it here, on Animal Care & Control's website — and they can call the emergency number at 415-554-9400 if they see a coyote looking sick, distressed, or injured.

Photo by John Thomas

Even buying a $27 million home in a tony SF neighborhood will not keep the coyotes off your property, as artificial intelligence mogul Sam Altman admits in an interview with Time magazine that he’s got a coyote that refuses to leave his San Francisco yard.

We brought you the story last month of a very chill San Francisco coyote lounging around on someone’s patio furniture. And we bring this up today because another such image was just published in Time magazine. The Time magazine photo of a coyote lounging on San Francisco patio furniture was taken by the partner of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and apparently Altman’s $27 million Russian Hill has a pesky coyote problem.  

We learn this in Time’s CEO of the Year interview with Altman, wherein Time reports that “an urban coyote that has colonized the grounds of his $27 million home in San Francisco.” This revelation comes about two-thirds of the way deep in a nearly 7,000-word profile of Altman.

“This coyote moved into my house and scratches on the door outside,” Altman told Time magazine. “It’s very cute, but it’s very annoying at night.”

Business Insider picks up the coyote story, and adds additional detail of their previous reporting on Altman’s Russian Hill house. Altman reportedly paid $27 million for the place in March of 2020. According to Business Insider, the house has “sweeping views over San Francisco, (and) includes a main residence, a wellness center, a cantilevered infinity pool, and an underground garage with a car turntable.”

It may feel like the SF coyote population has grown in recent years, but this is an incorrect perception. It’s just that the coyotes got more comfortable wandering into human habitats when the streets emptied out at the onset of the pandemic. The Chronicle reported in November that there are about 100 coyotes in San Francisco, and that population size “has remained consistent for 10 to 15 years.”

But I don’t care if you’re billionaire Sam Altman or who you are, please do not feed the coyotes.

Related: We've Got Seven Baby Coyotes in Golden Gate Park [SFist]

Images: (Left) TechCrunch via Wikimedia Commons, (Right) @ANoffsinger via Twitter

A couple was walking their dog in the Inner Richmond last week when they say a pack of four coyotes emerged from shadows grabbed their 13-year-old terrier Roscoe.

SF bar manager Lyndsay Przybyl tells NBC Bay Area that she was terrified when, while walking Roscoe with her boyfriend Tim on Dec. 7, they were suddenly surrounded by four coyotes. They were near Tim's home and Przybyl says she had just let Roscoe off his leash, because she typically did this when they were a half block away.

"Let me tell you. I will never do that again," she says.

Przybyl says the coyotes appeared as if out of nowhere, from in between cars on the street, near the intersection of 10th Avenue and California Street. And when Roscoe gave chase, one of the coyotes grabbed the dog by his neck and ran off.

Przybyl tells NBC Bay Area that Tim ran after the coyotes, and eventually the one dropped Roscoe and ran off.

This attack does seem unusual. Reports of attacks like this have tended to be confined to park areas, especially around Stern Grove where dog owners will sometimes let their pets off leash.

But these coyotes have gotten bold in their movements around the city.

Roscoe is reportedly recovering, after Przybyl rushed him to Oakland for emergency veterinary care. He was treated for six puncture wounds, including a serious one on the back of his neck that required a staple.

Przybyl tells SFGate that she reported the incident to Animal Care & Control. And, she says, "I’m forever grateful for [the veterinarians] and my boyfriend. He’s truly a hero. I’m tearing up just talking about it. … There was a lot of panic and regret.”

Deb Campbell, a spokesperson for Animal Care & Control, tells SFGate that the boldness of the coyotes is both because the pandemic provided them with more empty streets to roam onto, and because humans are illegally feeding them. The animals have become accustomed to getting food from humans, and they perceive pets the way they perceive any prey animal, including squirrels — and they may even think a pet off a leash is another free meal being given to them.

Related: SF Animal Care & Control Seeks Public's Help In Identifying Woman Who's Been Feeding Coyotes on Bernal Hill

Photo via Lindsay Przybyl

Animal Care & Control successfully rescued a coyote pup who fell into the ice cold water of the bay, and the little nipper received medical treatment and has returned to the wild.

San Francisco coyotes made themselves at home in human neighborhoods under shelter-in-place. And even though people are going out again, the pups growing up are not deterred from trotting about town. Yet one had an unfortunate episode at Fisherman’s Wharf Thursday morning, as SFGate reports that a coyote pup had to be rescued from the bay after taking a spill into the water near Pier 39.

“Earlier we had a call about a coyote in somebody's yard that couldn't find their way out, and we're pretty sure it's the same coyote," SF Animal Care and Control captain Amy Corso told SFGate. "Our officer had to come out to get her out. An hour later we get a call that she's at Pier 39 now.

“At one point her head was stuck between the flats of the dock. When our officer approached, she was so afraid of her, that rather than either get caught by her or run somewhere, she dove in to the bay."

That was not the right move for youngster coyote. But as we see in the video above from KGO, Animal Care & Control was able to commandeer a boat from the sightseeing cruise company Blue and Gold Fleet and corral the little pup in a net.

"We were able to get our boat up, and she scooped [the coyote] up in her net, and we got it out of the water just in time I think,” Blue and Gold Fleet operations manager Amanda Hogarth told KGO.

The coyote was warmed with a towel and, per SFGate, has been released back into the wild. If you see a coyote that appears to be in trouble, do call the SF Animal Care and Control Emergency Dispatch at (415) 554-9400. And do not feed the coyotes people food.

Related: We've Got Seven Baby Coyotes in Golden Gate Park [SFist]

Image: SF Animal Care & Control via Facebook

SF Animal Care & Control put out an APB of sorts on Wednesday morning, seeking the public's help in shaming and bringing to justice a woman who apparently thinks it's fun and helpful to feed wild coyotes.

The woman, who appears to have died purple or magenta hair, is pictured below, sitting in the grass with a package of meat — possibly store-prepared kabobs of some kind. Not far away, a coyote is visible in the grass, and she was allegedly feeding the animal. SFGate first reported on the release from Animal Care & Control, which says that the punishment for feeding wildlife is a $1,000 fine and/or jail time.

The photos appear to have been taken by a passerby, and the woman looks annoyed that she's been caught and photographed. Animal Care calls her a "particularly egregious coyote feeder," and they say she "allegedly feeds coyotes in other locations around the city" besides Bernal Hill, where the photos were taken.

As we have heard many times from experts, feeding coyotes leads to them losing their natural fear of humans which often leads to them being killed. As SF Animal Care & Control says in a PSA, "Fed wildlife is dead wildlife." And they add that "well intentioned handouts" can make wild animals sick, lead to disease, and can lead to territorial fighting that wouldn't otherwise have occurred.

So, the well intentioned but ignorant woman pictured above and below may think that she is feeding an animal who's hungry — possibly to distract from a void in her own life — but she is actually putting it in danger. A coyote in Golden Gate Park that was possibly a recent mother of cubs was euthanized last month by Animal Care & Control because it had been charging at children in the Botanical Garden. That coyote had clearly lost its fear of humans, possibly through feeding like this.

"People need to stop feeding wild animals," said Animal Care & Control Executive Director Virginia Donohue, in a statement. "Continuing to defy the law — and common sense — will lead to a person getting hurt and an animal being destroyed."

If you recognize this person, or see her again in action, please call Animal Care & Control at 415-554-9400.

Related: Coyote That Charged Toddlers In Golden Gate Park Was Euthanized