Grandmother says San Francisco coyote was inches away from attacking her grandson – SF Gate

It all happened so fast.

Jamie Carlson was enjoying a leisurely afternoon Oct. 13 with her 2-year-old grandson at the Conifer Lawn in the western part of the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Golden Gate Park.

Carlson spread a blanket on a sloping grassy hill under a tree, and as she and her grandson have done on many days, they enjoyed a picnic.

When it was time to leave, she put her grandson in the grass and folded up the blanket. At this point, the food was already packed up.

Carlson walked about 8 to 10 feet to the stroller to pack up when, from out of nowhere, a coyote with its mouth open and teeth bared charged down the hill straight toward the child.

The animal's mouth was within inches of her grandson, Carlson said, when she swooped in and grabbed him, screaming as loud as she could to scare it away.

"The animal didn't scare but instead started moving toward a baby sitting nearby with his mother," said the San Francisco native and resident.

The report collected by officials on the incident reveals that Carlson said the coyote was moving with intent and aiming for her grandson's neck. Carlson also said when she ran toward her grandson, he fell over and this saved him from being physically attacked.

In response to the incident, San Francisco Recreation and Parks closed the Conifer Lawn, installed new signs warning visitors of coyote activity and initiated a protocol for greeters at the garden entrance to alert visitors.

"While Animal Care and Control is handling the investigation and has alerted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Recreation and Park Department remains vigilant and is conducting outreach and monitoring of coyote activities and behavior," Recreation and Parks spokesperson Tamara Aparton wrote in a statement. "No bold coyote behavior has been reported to Rec and Park or the Botanical Garden since the incident. We will continue to work with our colleagues at Animal Care and Control to monitor, adapt and respond to the situation."

Carlson feels the city needs to do more. Signs in the park describe coyotes as generally afraid of humans, but she said the coyote that approached her grandchild was fearless of humans. She has heard from two friends who visited the garden since the incident that they weren't warned of coyotes at the entrance.

"Had I known there was any abnormal animal behavior, I wouldnt have walked away to the stroller," she said. "I feel really strongly that we need to do more to protect people in the garden. In the garden, you feel a sense of security that you should not feel. If we were told there has been abnormal animal behavior, we could all help each other out."

The San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department roped off the Conifer Lawn in the San Francisco Botanical Garden after a coyote came within inches of a child on Oct. 13, 2020.

Coyote sightings are common in San Francisco, where the animals have colonized the urban landscape, building dens and raising young in pockets of vegetation tucked among neighborhoods. A Nextdoor neighborhood group is filled with stories of coyotes killing backyard cats, and Instagram is flooded with images of coyotes sauntering S.F. streets. Even though the animals are generally nocturnal, sightings often occur in broad daylight.

Earlier this month, Bay Area resident Zaki Lisha reported picnicking in the Botanical Garden around a crowd of people when a coyote dropped by "as if it owned the place."

"Young families scattered at its sight, protecting their young ones," Lisha said.

Lisha snapped a photo (see below) and it shows the animal closely passing by humans in broad daylight.

With all the talk and photos of coyote activity, it may seem the animals have suddenly descended on San Francisco in recent years, but actually they are native to California and are repopulating an area where they lived in abundance until the mid-1900s.

Police officers killed coyotes that crossed the Golden Gate Bridge out of the city for many years, and when this practice stopped, coyotes began building dens around the city in the early 2000s. Nobody knows exactly how many coyotes live in the city, but Amy Corso, field services supervisor for San Francisco Animal Care and Control, estimates the number is below 100.

"It depends on the time of the year," Corso said. "A lot of pups are killed by cars in spring and fall, and numbers go back down."

Coyote activity increases and sightings become more common in spring and summer, when they're raising young and searching for food, but Corso has noticed a consistent increase in sightings during the pandemic.

"I think people are home more and people are walking their dogs more often," she said. "We went through that period when we were pretty locked down, and people weren't venturing out. At that point, wildlife came out more. It was more comfortable for them to do so with the lockdown. This is what I think. This isn't scientific fact."

While the number of conflicts between humans and coyotes in the city is unknown, Corso shared for aprevious SFGATE article that Animal Care and Control has received more reports in recent years.

"Were getting more reports of people being uncomfortable with the amount of sightings, seeing them walking by so close to them." Corso said there have also been reports of coyotes killing small pets left in the backyard, and she encourages residents to not leave cats and small dogs unattended outdoors, especially at night.

Corso said she has never heard of a coyote acting aggressively toward a child in San Francisco or biting either a child or adult, but incidents have occurred outside the city.A 5-year-old girl was hospitalized after a coyote bit her in Dublin Hills Regional Park in April. A coyote bit a woman on Tennessee Beach in the Marin Headlands in September.

A coyote sighting in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in broad daylight, October 2020.

Stanley Gehrt, a coyote researcher and wildlife ecologist who teaches at Ohio State University, has studied coyotes living in Chicago for years and often hears from city officials when aggression occurs in urban environments across the country.

"I do get a lot of inquiries from San Francisco folks, both agency folks and the general public," he said. "That has been going on for over a decade."

Gehrt has observed a similar pattern unfold in all cities with coyotes whether Washington, D.C., Cleveland or Los Angeles where a small number become more bold than others.

"Its still a very rare event for a coyote to bite a person," he said. "Its still a big step for them to take to go from just bold to actually biting someone. You dont want to ignore the situation. People need to be aware so they can take precautions."

He said the reason coyotes become problematic and lose their fear of humans is almost always due to them being fed human food, and Corso said she knows this occurs in San Francisco.

"We really get into problems when that happens," Corso said. "Years ago, someone was busted for hand-feeding a coyote. That hand is now seen as a food source."

While Corso specifically knows of some individuals who intentionally feed coyotes from their backyards or at areas frequented by the animals, she said most of the feeding is likely unintentional.

Pet food left outdoors and trash cans are two sources of food for the animals. She said the city encourages people to secure lids on cans left outside and to bring pet food inside when animals are done eating. Animal Care and Control can help residents who like to feed feral cats build special platforms for food that the cats, and not the coyotes, can reach.

Another issue is overgrowth in backyards where coyotes hunt for rodents.

"We have seen coyotes create a den in someones yard that has a lot of this overgrowth," Corso said. "Its really important for residents to keep those yards tidy, not allow it to be harborage for coyotes."

As these animals have made themselves at home in the city, it's important for residents to know what to do when they encounter a bold coyote.

"Be confident in your actions: Clap, yell, look it in the eye and go on," she said.

Gehrt echoed the importance of hazing coyotes.

"Usually, its making a loud noise and taking a step or two in their direction," he said. "You may have to wave your arms. You may even throw something in their direction. If you do something like that and the animal isnt afraid of you and perhaps stands its ground and may exhibit aggressive behavior, then you need to report that to officials."

He added, "Once you have animals exhibiting bold behavior you have to do some sort of reaction, that might involve hazing, it might be opportunistic hazing or programmatic hazing, looking for opportunities to haze the animals, sometimes that works, sometimes its not effective. If the animals are becoming more of a threat to the health and safety of people then at some point they have to be removed."

A coyote looks over the water during a visit to a mostly deserted Kirby Cove on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Photographer Scott Oller captured the moment on April 9, 2020.

Robert Hughes of Pacifica attempted to haze the coyote that nearly attacked the child at Golden Gate Park earlier this month. He didn't see the animal running after the child, but he saw Carlson clutching her grandson and running away from it.

"This was an extremely large coyote," Hughes said. "I live in Pacifica and frequently see coyotes in my backyard. Im not surprised by coyotes. This was a very big coyote. I made a lot of noise. I waved my hands. I yelled. That coyote was not intimidated at all. That was an extremely bold coyote. Finally, it left. It didnt run away. It left as if it were thinking, 'Oh, youre going to continue with that. I guess I'll go.'"

Read more from the original source:
Grandmother says San Francisco coyote was inches away from attacking her grandson - SF Gate