A coyote in the Presidio in 2016, presumably on its way to eat your leftovers. (Getty Images/San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers)
Depending on your perspective, San Francisco coyotes are either malevolent, pet-hunting mini-wolves, or they’re simple floofs with as much right to live in the city as humans.
Recognizing that we as a species probably don’t know as much as we should about our four-legged neighbors, six intrepid researchers recently took it upon themselves to figure out the city-dwelling animals’ habits. The team, led by UC Davis PhD student Tal Caspi, decided the best way to do this was to spend two and a half years sifting through — God bless surgical glove inventors — coyote poop.
Since the animals were entirely uncooperative when it came to mailing scat samples into the lab, between September 2019 and April 2022, Caspi and co. (presumably very carefully) ran around parks, golf courses and gardens picking up more than 1,200 coyote number twos. Almost 700 of these were of a quality that could be subjected to territory-level analyses. The results? Turns out that the greatest source of food for city ’yotes — 78% in fact — comes from human leftovers. Though the animals are also partial to snacking on gophers, rats, voles, birds and (oh, the humanity!) raccoons. (Raccoons!)
Earlier this week, the team published their complete findings in Ecosphere, an open-access ecology journal, and was considerate enough to include handy graphs for the lay person. Like this one that shows the animal-based food that coyotes are most likely to consume in San Francisco:
Good lord, that’s a lot of dead gophers. (Tal Caspi/Monica G. Serrano/Stevi L. Vanderzwan/Janet Kessler/Christopher J. Schell/Benjamin N. Sacks)
The green, red and purple lines on the lower chart reflect the period when young coyotes seek out their own territory, mating season and pupping season, respectively. Looks like chicken is the year-round favorite!
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Another chart shows the areas where coyotes are most likely to be feasting on human snacks. Unsurprisingly, these are places where people have picnics (Golden Gate Park, Bernal Hill), a plethora of restaurants (Coit Tower) or trash cans that are undisturbed by urban foot traffic (St. Francis Wood). In terms of wildlife consumption, the rodents of McLaren Park and the Presidio are the ones that most need to watch their backs.
Sadly, only animal-based snacks were measured in the research. We bet the pizza results around Coit Tower would’ve been off the chart. (Tal Caspi/Monica G. Serrano/Stevi L. Vanderzwan/Janet Kessler/Christopher J. Schell/Benjamin N. Sacks)
Despite alarm in recent months about increasing coyote numbers in San Francisco and the threats they pose to pets, the city-wide population is estimated to only be around 100, according to SF Gate. Though an abundance of caution should always be used while walking pets off leash, the research suggests coyotes might be more inclined to go after your leftover chicken parm.
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