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