There are large flocks of pigeons flying around the streets all day, like I've never seen before. I wonder where they get their food now the terraces and plazas are empty.
Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco
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Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco
#102Here in Vancouver there are social media accounts of cougar tracks on a beach and in a park. Unconfirmed. Unlike coyotes here (common)[1], or bears and deer (occasional), cougars are virtually unheard of near populated areas so this is notable if true. Yes, yes, cue the "preying on young men in bars" jokes... :-P [1] http://stanleyparkecology.ca/conservation/co-existing-with-c...
A security camera in SF caught a cougar on video a few years ago.
Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco
#103Those little guys are so cute. Our Eastern coyotes are about twice that size, having hybridized with timberwolves.
I hadn't heard that. That's interesting given that I took a picture of what I thought was a coyote in NY and someone told me that it was a wolf.
Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco
#104I grew up in LA and while I don't live there anymore I've seen pictures from the last few days. Never in my life have I seen such blue skies over LA. And my parents don't ever remember it being clearer either. At least this shows what some stricter climate controls can do to both the climate and the economy and the tradeoffs involved.
Keep in mind stricter climate controls wouldn’t even hurt the economy this bad. A harsh carbon tax on all fossil fuels in exchange for COVID-19 to disappear to be gone would be a welcome relief to the economy.
With ya on this one, but what kinds of problems would this cause for people who don't have another option to get to work? Un-doing this ridiculous culture of driving 40 minutes to work will take a lot time.
Still, I wholeheartedly agree on the concept. I'm curious as to how to fix the followup problems that will occur from fixing the primary problem.
Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco
#105I live in the PNW. Every few days someone gets on nextdoor.com freaking out about having seen a coyote. My response is always the same. They were here long before humans were ever here and will still be here long after we are gone.
Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco
#106As an early morning runner in SF, I see coyotes in SF every week or two, including at Twin peaks as mentioned in the article. One morning in Golden Gate Park I warned a few people walkings dogs since there were about 4 coyotes around the corner. From my first hand experience, I'd assume any wooded area with cover in SF has a coyote living there.
There have been sightings in Corona Heights too (pretty far from GGP)
How appropriate.
Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coyotes have already done an excellent job of coexisting with humans. They are one of the most successful species at adapting to human civilization. Pigeons, rats, roaches, etc. also quite successful.
> Coyotes have already done an excellent job of coexisting with humans I have only seen them being 'successful' if are large tracts of land around the cities that they can live at. Would they be able to live in, say, Manhattan? If not, as we expand the urban sprawl, they might become less successful... And coyotes are not the only species we should be worried about.
I thought the whole point of complaints about "sprawl" was that suburbs are bad and "urbs" are good. The suburbs are prime habitat for a lot of creatures including coyotes, especially because they don't have to worry about hunters.
Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco
#108I wish the article contained more than 1 image of a coyote on a SF street. Nonetheless, very "12 Monkeys"-esque.
Coyotes are terrorizing the once inhabited city.
If you are a grown adult, coyotes aren't that dangerous or scary.
They aren't very big. They will attack small pets and children that are alone, but they typically leave adult humans alone.
I used to go for six mile walks in the High Desert for exercise. I routinely ran into coyotes. They never bothered me.
I did tell my children to not go out alone at night. There had been two or three attacks on children in the previous five years.
I have a dog phobia due to things that happened when I was about four years old. I'm not similarly afraid of coyotes.
Of course, I wouldn't want to run into a large pack in the dark either. They can and will take down deer as a pack and did so sometimes within earshot of my tent when I was homeless.
So, I mean, don't be stupidly cavalier, but lone coyotes are known to not be particularly dangerous to adult humans.
Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taking comfort in the potential extinction of humanity because at least there would be some non-sapient critters still around strikes me as an odd value system. Couldn't you make the analogous argument that the extinction of all life on Earth would be fine since it would have absolutely no effect on the vast majority of the universe?
>non-sapient critters still around even leaving out monkeys and apes, i think other animals like for example racoons can make it to the "sapient" level with time if humans would "release" the space back to the Nature. And i think we have only very slightest idea about birds and insects. Cro-Magnon has been i'd say a version 0.7 of sapience with major bugs and broken&missing features, and i'd not be surprised if the N…
That's entirely possible. But sapience isn't necessarily adaptive. Ancient humans combined sapience with other traits like endurance, dexterity, overhand throwing ability, and social instincts to carve out an ecological niche long enough to reap the benefits of culture. Removing any one of those factors would have made prehistoric humans unviable.
If I was going to bet on non-human sapience, though, I'd go with crows. Intelligence seems to be most effective if you combine it with social instincts to create culture. Crows do this already.
Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco
#110Just wait until the mountain lions and brown bears start prowling around looking for snacks :-)
For folks further out into the 'human/wildlife interface' as the Forest Service calls it (or the 'cafeteria' as I call it) sightings of all wildlife is up. Some friends who retired out in Brentwood[1] (not the LA neighborhood, the town outside of Livermore CA) They now have nearly continual deer presence and multiple daily sightings of Coyote and Fox around mid-morning and dusk. They have heard mountain lions but haven't seen one yet, and no bears so far.
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brentwood,+CA+94513/@37.90...