Coyotes: Harder to Come By Than I Thought

*sigh* Does anyone love the coyote??

I scoured the web tonight for wildlife rescue and rehab centers in the Southwestern United States, as this is the new direction that my journey is taking me (more on that in a moment). The sites were generously sprinkled with cutey-pie pics of baby owls, raccoons, opossums, antelope, golden eagles, and rabbits, but nary a coyote shot was to be seen. Why is this? I ask. Surely there must be plenty of abandoned, injured, and otherwise incapacitated coyotes scattered over the desert mesas.

Or not . . . I can't remember the last time I saw a coyote with its head stuck in a tin can (ahem, do I hear a raccoon?).

The coyote's curious omission deserves a suitable investigation . . . and is yet another good reason why I've taken up its cause in the first place. My initial theory is that because coyote hunters are offered a bounty on their kills, locals simply exterminate them with a Smith & Wesson on the spot, rather than attempt to haul them in to a wildlife shelter. It's a shame, but since I don't know for sure - I think I better go to the source and find out. To be continued.

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In other news, recent developments in my job search have redirected the focus (and duration) of my fact-finding trip. So as not to harm the karma of my upcoming interview, I won't give the whos whens and wheres, but I will say that it will definitely satisfy the needs of my naturalist soul and is the first prospect I've been genuinely excited about in years. As part of the interview I was asked to put together a nature-focused presentation, and if you have to ask which topic I chose, you'll need to re-read the title of this blog. ;-p Bolstered by the creative challenge (and the drive to start earning a decent paycheck), I hammered out my first children's book in just half a day! The result really surprised me. I plan to give a reading of the short work to my prospective employers, complete with Cleo the Coyote hand puppet and plenty of yips, yowls, and yodels. Wow, when the HR representative referred to the follow-up interview as an "audition," I was a little taken aback at first . . . but then I instantly set to work with fervor on the project. And I'm truly excited about the interview. Hmmm, my horoscope and job inventory quizzes have always said "actress" was in my stars and cards, so this job just might be "the one." I sure hope so.

Naturally, if I get the job - and I hope that I do - I'll need to break my coyote journey up into segments of 2-3 weeks. That's fine by me, I can still squeeze a trip in this September and get the process started. I'm considering the Southwest because its nearby, has a long history of coyote folklore within the oral history of the Native Americans, and offers plenty of opportunities for coyote sighting within deserted, lonely, and sacred terrain. If its a spiritual journey I'm after, then this is the ticket. Plus, I hear late summer weather promises a more agreeable desert. Since I'm not necessarily hopping Hiltons here, avoiding excessive hot, cold, rain, and snow is high on my list of creature comforts.

Revised "Still Wild At Heart" Website on the Way

Melissa Peabody just let me know that a new, revised "San Francisco: Still Wild At Heart" website is on the way and should be online near the end of August. The web address and contact info will remain the same, so refer to my previous posting to get the links.

Still Wild At Heart: An interview with an SF coyote crusader

Imagine: a coyote in your very own backyard. A special piece of wildlife that remains wild, even within the most congested and seemingly inhospitable of environments. A sentinel canine cruising the crest of one of San Francisco's smallest and most city-locked open space preserves. Now, enter a fellow neighbor named Melissa Peabody . . . an inspired producer and film editor, so transfixed by the sight of the animal that she makes this particular coyote the subject of an elegant documentary on urban wildlife. Newly released, this film pays homage to the little traveler who could, to the coyote that made a dash for the hilly bullocks of Bernal Heights one day in 2003 and never looked back. It is also a refreshing look at how wild animals and humans can coexist happily and peacefully within the confines of a concrete jungle.

"San Francisco: Still Wild At Heart" is Peabody's "Silent Spring" for the educated city dweller, the occasional environmentalist that sometimes forgets to bring a reusable sack to the grocery store, who hasn't yet switched from a 20 MPG gas guzzling Camaro with a V8 engine to a denim blue-colored (and, as the green energy group espouses, the proletarian blue-collared) Prius, and who still pitches away $5 a day for a glass of Chardonnay at the corner bar's happy hour rather than emptying the funds into Green Peace's coffers. It's a documentary that is effective simply because it does not try to be. It presents a natural problem that is increasing in incidence, offers viable suggestions for handling the issues in a positive way, and allows the viewer to react freely to the facts presented without coercion. This isn't PETA with rotten eggs and a can of red spray paint; this is Peabody with a handheld camera and a passion for a rather comfortable-looking coyote. (If she happened to shoot footage of the coyote receiving hillside handouts of Purina and prosciutto - those Bernal Heights folks have good taste, even if they don’t keep their coyote distance - she isn't telling, and she certainly isn't showing it, lest she be pulling strips of wet toilet paper out of her trees with tweezers for the next year.) Like good fences, a bit of documentary discretion makes for good neighbors.

I had the good fortune to catch up with Peabody at a books-y little cafe tucked onto a side street of her neighborhood, at the very foot of the Bernal Heights open space where the star of her documentary resides. It was a rare warm and sunny day in the city when she came in with her twin sons, herself sporting a breezy white blouse set in motion by swirling coral flowers. With her sun-touched blonde hair and casual exuberance, she was a summer afternoon personified. While the boys ate nearby, we sat and chatted about Peabody's project and the history of the Bernal Heights coyote, who I'll refer to as "Bernie."

Peabody has lived in San Francisco for almost 20 years. She spent the first seven years of her life in Farmington, New Mexico, near the Four Corners area, a place well-known in ancient Indian folklore and current suburban legends as a coyote hotbed. Still, it wasn't until Bernie took up residence on the hill behind her San Francisco home that she saw her first wild coyote in the flesh, err, fur. And she was smitten.

Up to that point, she had edited mostly ocean and marine life nature documentaries and hadn't seen cause to expand her view. "And then, the coyote showed up on our hill," Peabody said with a smile. Quickly, things began to change.

"I know this sounds crazy," she said, but "the actual look in the coyote's eyes" when she first saw him stirred something in her. There was a depth to his gaze that Peabody connected with at once. Soon after that chance meeting with Bernie she took her sons, then eight, up on the hill to catch a glimpse of the intriguing new addition to the park. Little did they know that they would be embarking on a journey with their mom that would bring them face-to-face with not just Bernie, but coveys of cooing quail, flocks of cheeky parrots, and a host of other wild animals living within the not-so-wild walls of an urban enclave. It would be a transforming experience for everyone involved.

Peabody's hour-long documentary focuses about 50% of the time on coyotes, but at the outset these carnivores weren't even slated for a cameo appearance. "It [Wild At Heart] was only going to be half an hour . . . and then the coyote hijacked the film!" Peabody laughed, her blue eyes dancing. Bernie trotted into her life at just the right time, and she saw the power of using the image of a resilient, often-persecuted animal - that just so happens to bear a striking resemblance to a runty Border Collie - as a vehicle for teaching the public about responsible wildlife stewardship. The relatively recent influx of coyotes into urban environments all over the country makes the release of her piece especially timely. "I feel like it kind of really brings to this visible point how coyotes and humans fight over resources," she said.

For the coyotes, learning to live around humans involves a transition period where they must adapt to hunting, sleeping, and traveling within their new locale. "People seem to need time to make that transition, too," Peabody added thoughtfully. Only for humans the learning curve seems to be taking a little longer. Through "Wild At Heart," Peabody hopes to educate city slickers on the behavior changes they'll need to make so that man and beast can live side-by-side in a blended habitat. The two most important rules, with regards to coyotes, are to keep cats in the house and dogs on a leash, and to never, never, ever feed the coyotes. This not only makes them dependent on humans for handouts (with possible deleterious effects on their health), but it also erases their fear of man, which can lead to too-close encounters of the canine kind. A toddler with a taco in hand suddenly looks like a lunch cart vendor, and the coyote may inadvertently injure a small and unaware child as she grabs for her next meal.

Rest assured, stories of coyote attacks are very few, and very far between. Bernie, now in his fifth year of Bernal Heights habituation, has done a just dandy job of managing his heavily-used space with minimal interaction. "He has not attacked any dogs yet!" Peabody announced with all the pride of a den mother. He's even left the neighbor's big white cat alone that roams the grassy knoll daily, despite Peabody's strong warning to the snackalicious pet's owner. Peabody was even privy to witness an extraordinary event involving Bernie and another neighbor's dog that proves just how little distance lies between wild and domestic dogs.

"I have a theory borne of seeing unusual things with coyotes," she began, with perhaps the most unusual thing involving Bernie "attempting to play with the neighbor's fat little girl dog" while the neighbor's male dog barked and growled, either in territorial aggression or just plain old jealousy. "At first I didn't believe it," Peabody said, but on that evening walk, seeing was definitely believing. Due to the coyote's size and playful demeanor towards the female dog, Peabody thinks Bernie is most likely a "he." Still, she advises keeping dogs well away from the wild coyote. There's no good reason to tempt fate and possibly ruin the good thing that both Bernie and the folks of Bernal Heights have going. Announcing that you have a healthy coyote in your background carries a modicum of cache, especially at environmentalist-heavy cocktail parties.

But why the playful advances to the local girls? Perhaps Bernie's lonely, and just wants a mate. Maybe in the past five years he hasn’t so much lounged around in the grass (as coyotes usually do when not at hunt), but has busied himself with building an elaborate subterranean Taj Mahal under Bernal Hill, with the hopes of finding a worthy lady coyote to share his fairy-tale perch with. I don't imagine many other contenders could offer such an amazing piece of prize real estate to their prospective mates, coyote or human, so if Bernie can coax a female coyote through the perils of cross-city traffic, he'll be the hottest catch on the coyote market - paws down. Not to mention that he's now a film star!

If you would like to learn more about the San Francisco coyote and urban wildlife, you may purchase the “San Francisco: Still Wild At Heart” DVD from Melissa Peabody. Email her at mpeabody@pacbell.net.

Photo credits: Anna Kuperberg

Happy Trails!

Why Did the Coyote Cross the Bridge?

*Not sure who to credit for this stellar shot, but I found it on this person's Flickr site on 8/12/08:
http://flickr.com/photos/stubbornbeauty/2215602653/

I had a little chat with Bill Merkle today, who is a wildlife ecologist with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRC). GGNRA is a division of Golden Gate National Parks, an extensive parks system which encompasses the Marin Headlands and Muir Woods north of San Francisco, Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, and Crissy Field, Fort Point, and the Presidio within San Francisco proper. By all accounts, Merkle is the go-to man for the local coyote low-down, so I was very excited to receive a call from him in response to my inquiry last week. Like any good steward of the environment, he was at first a little remiss to talk about the coyotes' whereabouts (plenty of people want to know their range, either so they can harass the poor animals out of spite or so they can follow them around out of love - which, depending on the quantity/quality of food offered and the degree of patience of the 'yote, could qualify as harassment as well). Pretty soon, he opened up and told me what I wanted to know.

Coyotes have been longtime residents of San Francisco and its environs, but with increasing development and loss of farm land over the last century they fled to greener pastures. Their return to their former homeland has been a fairly recent phenomenon, and their appearance in the city of San Francisco is nothing less than an amazing story of survival, a la "An Incredible Journey." I only lasted one year in the big city, so I tip my hat to those furry survivors who have managed to make a go of it here, even in the face of mostly anti-coyote sentiment mingled with a false sense of fear. To carve out a tiny niche of nature in a bustling metropolis is a noteworthy achievement, indeed!

The first coyote sighting in the city occurred in 2002 in the Presidio, a wooded enclave that caps the northernmost end of the city and the southern terminus of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Presidio has been the most likely spot for sighting coyotes, and Merkle says at least one pair probably lives there still. Other sites where he has received coyote reports from are Land's End, Fort Mason, Golden Gate Park, and Twin Peaks. "I've heard there's definitely coyotes at Lake Candlestick Park," he added. Whether or not they know their way around a dugout - or just dig out dens in the outfield - remains to be seen. I really do enjoy the image of coyote sauntering up to the pitcher's mound in a Giant's jersey with the game ball clutched in his muzzle, proceeding to drop it at the pitcher's feet with a little flip of the lip and swish of the tail. Who knew team pets could be so arrogant?

But I digress. What's really amazing, and I'm not talking major league wild dogs here, is how the coyote managed to find its way into San Francisco in the first place. The most likely, and least treachorous, route it would seem is from the south by way of San Mateo. Many coyotes live in the dry, desert-like hills of San Mateo, San Jose, and Gilroy, and the trip up north through the Peninsula wouldn't involve any doggie paddling across major waterways, so the prospect of them arriving via this route is entirely possible. Yet, it is a journey through at least 30 miles of densely populated suburbs, with the hazards of humans all around. Any coyote to make it through this maze is worth his salt, and deserves a special spot in the city free from molestation and stocked with the plumpest ground squirrels - in my opinion. But his friends from the north have perhaps an even more amazing route to navigate, even if it is shorter distance.

In 2003 genetic testing was performed on a coyote that was captured in the Presidio. Scientists from the School of Veterinary Medecine at UC Davis determined, "with 97.5% probability" that the city coyote in question was related not to his southern-dwelling cousins, but to coyote populations in northern Marin county. In 2007 genetic testing of another coyote that was (unfortunately) killed by USDA Fish and Game officials in Golden Gate Park revealed that it too was a genetic match to the northern coyote clan.

In all, "two out of two coyotes tested [since genetic testing began] have been of North Bay origin," said Merkle. While no one's disputing the results of the testing, it seems to raise more questions than answers, principally, how in the world did a coyote cross the Golden Gate Bridge? There are some folks who hold out that perhaps someone caught the animals, drove them across the bridge, and then deposited them in the city - maybe as a joke played by earthy, eco-conscious Marin on her nature-deficient cosmopolitan sister, San Francisco. Due to the age (2-3 years old) and initial location (Crissy Field, right next to the bridge) of the first coyote tested, Merkle tends to believe that the little guy just up and hauled off over the bridge bikeway one day. Why? We might never know. But his spirit of adventure classifies him as a true "Don Coyote" of the modern age. He may have even found that windmill in Golden Gate Park sufficiently scary enough to tilt at, but that's just wishful thinking.