They walk along busy San Francisco streets. In Chinatown plazas. Across the paths of Muni buses. One was found dozing in a laundromat.
Coyotes can sometimes be seen roaming in cities around the country, including Chicago and New York. But in San Francisco, they have become ubiquitous, and the tension between humans and coyotes is growing.
Some people adore them, and coyote mania has seeped into the city’s quirky culture. Others despise them and have called for their eradication, especially after one lunged at children and killed small dogs. Many people simply wonder where they all came from in the first place.
Scientists found that the DNA of the first arrivals did not match that of coyotes to the south. Instead, it matched the DNA of coyotes found to the north, beyond the strait and bay that separate the city from Marin County.
“Did they walk over the Golden Gate Bridge?” asked Christine Wilkinson, a carnivore ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “That’s my top theory.”