San Francisco Coyotes: Now They're in the Subway, Too

Coyotes have been showing up just about everywhere in San Francisco, both in places you might expect them, like Golden Gate Park and the Presidio, and places where the only natural reaction is a double-take, like Chinatown’s Portsmouth Square.

Now, a pair of the bold canids have been spotted in a place where none of their kind had been seen before: exploring a Muni subway tunnel.

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency interim chief Julie Kirschbaum told the SFMTA board of directors on Tuesday that two northbound coyotes were observed entering the Central Subway tunnel near Fourth and Bryant streets before dawn on Jan. 27.

“Our sweeper train spotted the coyotes as part of the safety preparation to open the subway” for daily service, Kirschbaum said. The train followed the coyotes for more than a mile, all the way to the end of the line at Chinatown’s Rose Pak station. Then, the question was how to get them out of the tunnel.

“We contacted Animal Control, but it was a little too early for them” — before 6 a.m. — Kirschbaum said.

The coyotes solved the problem themselves, heading back south past the Union Square and Yerba Buena stops and back out of the tunnel on Fourth Street.

It was a happy ending, Kirschbaum said, with Central Subway service opening for the day without delays.

San Francisco Animal Care and Control logs hundreds of reports of coyote encounters every year, ranging from simple sightings to attacks on pets and, rarely, humans.

Animal care officials have estimated there are 100 coyotes living within the city limits, and UC Berkeley researchers, who analyzed a decade’s worth of city data, have found that dogs were involved in 79% of San Francisco residents’ reports of conflicts with the wild canids.

Animal Care and Control has published advice for residents on how to handle coyote encounters — starting with the recommendation to walk away from the animals when you see them. The department also encourages residents to report their coyote sightings.