Coyotes Leaving Their Hearts In San Francisco

With California’s shelter-in-place order deserting otherwise crowded city streets due to the COVID-19 concerns, local wildlife is taking advantage of the lack of people and taking over the city. Take San Francisco, says this report in the S.F. Chronicle: 

There has been an increase in coyotes in the city over recent years. In February KQED reported that they were thought to be recolonizing the places they used to inhabit abundantly after being nearly wiped out through poisoning and hunting from the ’40s onwards. After years of zero sightings in San Francisco, a coyote was seen in the Presidio in 2002, thought to have been brought over from a trapper in the North Bay or possibly even making its way alone over the Golden Gate Bridge. Since then numbers have continued to rise.

As San Franciscans get through their second week of sheltering in place, coyotes are seemingly enjoying the newfound space on the street.

On Monday twitter user @manishkumar457 shared a photo of a coyote on the sidewalk during the shutdown.

Coyote on the streets of San Francisco during the coronavirus shelter in place order #mindblowing #wow pic.twitter.com/mz35HAe9ZM

— manishkumar (@manishkumar457) March 23, 2020

There are a few other recent sightings in San Francisco as well.

I….am actually okay with this. https://t.co/42Ygjy7eXy

— Amy Tureen (@ATureen) March 28, 2020

I went for a walk for fresh air and a group of women called out to me. And omg, they had spotted a pack of sleeping coyotes in the middle of (usually busy) San Francisco. pic.twitter.com/NNdG3dcs2Q

— Christina Farr (@chrissyfarr) March 20, 2020