In the Presidio last week, park officials banned dogs from major portions of the park’s trails after several dog owners reported frightening encounters with coyotes (but not attacks).
Part of San Francisco’s charm is living among wildlife. I often have staring contests with raccoons on my deck; skunks scurry down our street at night, hawks are everywhere, and great blue herons, nesting at Stow Lake, often stop in Golden Gate Park’s grassy fields for a gopher snack. There’s even a fox family in the Botanical Gardens. The list goes on.
But coyotes? To be fair, they were here before us and now they’re back — perhaps 20, perhaps a lot more, according to a range of estimates — within city limits. Does that mean they should stay? Grizzly bears once roamed the peninsula, too. Hands up if you’d like to see grizzlies brought back.
Mea culpa. Jumping from coyotes — scrawny, skulking 35-pounders at best — to massive, face-munching grizzlies is a twist of overheated rhetoric on my part.
But not entirely. Let’s check in with the University of California “integrated pest management” folks (yes, coyotes are considered a potential pest):
Within urban and suburban areas in California, some coyotes have adapted to residential neighborhoods, parks, and open spaces, and seemingly have lost their fear of humans. They prey on the abundant rodents, rabbits, birds, house cats, and small dogs that live in residential habitats. They also will feed on household garbage, pet food, and seeds and fruits of many garden and landscape plants. In some localities, this has resulted in the development of local coyote populations that seemingly ignore people, while a few coyotes have become increasingly aggressive toward humans. They will stalk and even attack children or adults, or attack pets being walked on a leash by their owners. More than 160 such attacks have occurred in California since the 1970s, and they are becoming more frequent, particularly in suburban areas of Southern California. While only one attack has been fatal (to a 3-year-old girl, attacked in her front yard in 1981), a number of attacks have resulted in serious injuries. When it reaches the point where pets are being attacked or coyotes are seen in neighborhoods in early morning or late afternoon, area-wide corrective actions are recommended to prevent an escalation to attacks on humans.
That escalation has not yet occurred in SF. The aggressive behavior last week in the Presidio was apparently mom and dad coyote protecting their dens. It’s “pupping season.”
Wildlife officials say coyotes are afraid of humans and won’t attack unless they’ve become habituated by eating garbage or pet food, for example. In other words: bad humans! If we weren’t so careless — or in the case of people who actually try to feed coyotes, straight-up dumb — we would have greater harmony with nature.
But what if you’re not the human doing the careless or dumb stuff, and suddenly the watchword is keep your small kids inside? Should you nod and get with the program? What if you or your kid is attacked?
Also, past patterns or norms of coyote behavior might not apply. With coyotes hanging out in city parks and neighborhoods, we’re now in a new era of urban human-coyote relations. “We know very little about them in urban areas in California and more scientific study is needed,” says Niamh Quinn, who works at a UC center in Southern California that tracks coyote encounters.
To be clear, I’m not saying that the city’s coyotes pose an imminent threat to people, or that they should be relocated. I’m all about peaceful coexistence.
But what if experts decide at some point that coyotes in the city, be it in the Presidio, Ingleside Terrace, or Buena Vista Park (where there is a mating pair I have seen up close on a midday stroll), have crossed the line from urban wildlife to out-of-control pest. What to do? What would “area-wide corrective actions” look like?
Would closing a Presidio or Mt. Sutro trail or a Bernal Heights open space to humans, for example, be on the table? It’s one thing to close a beloved shared space (a beach, a park trail) to dogs or even people because an endangered animal needs peace in that habitat to survive. It’s another to close the space because an non-endangered animal that has acclimated with abundance to urban life is a threat.
(I asked the Presidio Trust about coyote contingency plans and have yet to hear back.)
One thing we know: problem coyotes cannot be relocated to the countryside without state approval. It is illegal because of the possibility of spreading rabies. Once captured, they have to be released in the same area or killed.
Let’s talk about that, too. In 2007, fish and game officials killed two coyotes that attacked a dog in Golden Gate Park. Are we OK with that happening again, if needed? This is not a species in danger. The state has no shortage of coyotes.
Another part of the calculus is whether the coyotes, other than giving us a thrill with their late-night howls, are doing us any favors. The city’s environmental folks say they keep rodent populations down. Quinn, however, says it’s not at a rate that would make a difference. (If they could be trained to eat feral cats, however, they might be more useful.)
So, San Francisco, let’s talk about it. We love wildlife. But it would be nice to know if officials have a plan in case the coyotes that live among us force changes like park closures or extra caution for our children. Let’s not wait for a big problem. Let’s start talking about it now.
