Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

sfgate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 318 posts

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#251

Post by zhte415 »

gerdesj wrote: post #161
baybal2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A disturbing story I heard when living in Russia in my childhood was that if you see a wild animal in the city, it means that beasts have ran out of trash and waste to eat, and are getting more riskier, and you shouldn't be coming close to them unless you want to be eaten.

You have some rather bigger beasties running around in Russia than I'll ever see here. I live in a small town in the SW of England, UK called Yeovil pop. 45,000. We have loads of foxes and badgers. Foxes seem roughly comparable to a coyote. I regularly see foxes here and not just in the parks. I do live rather close to a lot of park as well as the town so that helps. Sadly the badgers in Somerset seem to be suicidal…

London has a lot of foxes; as a child a pair used to come through the garden of my home only to be chased out by our cat, which I thought was quite impressive of the cat.

Until, talking to a friend the grew up in Newfoundland that casually mentioned, to echo your parent comment, "From time to time, we had polar bears. Don't get close to a polar bear."

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#252

Post by tnolet »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #246
OkGoDoIt wrote: post #137

I walk a lot all over San Francisco, including at night. I’ve been seeing coyotes in the streets for at least a year now. Several times in North Beach, a couple times in the dogpatch/China basin area by the ballpark, etc. My phone doesn’t take great photos in low light, but I posted what photos I can on my Twitter [1] and Instagram and Facebook to try and get the word out. At this point I kind of just assumed everyon…

I was walking around the Marina in SF about 15 years ago at night. I heard a rustling in a front yard and stopped to look. It took me a second to focus on what I was looking at in the dark. It was a skunk in a defensive posture with it's tail raised. I slowly backed away, and fortunately didn't get sprayed, although that would have made for a better story.

I had a similar encounter 10 years ago around 24th street and Mission. Was a raccoon though. Very cute one too and quite fat.

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#253

Post by BiteCode_dev »

kirykl wrote: post #203
spodek wrote: post #135

What we think of wild nature is nothing compared to what used to exist. Schools of fish so dense they would bring boats to a halt in the middle of the Atlantic. North America had more large wildlife than Africa. Whales as far as the eye could see all day long. Walruses in the Thames in London. I did a couple video essays on what I learned from a wonderful book The Once and Future World : My video essays: https://yout…

As a counter, overpopulation isn’t necessarily a good thing. The waste alone can create issues on land and water.

Population was balancing itself for millions of year. We call overpopulation a population big enough to annoy us.

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#254

Post by ezconnect »

bdamm wrote: post #58
jedberg wrote: post #38

I 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.

Walking around my neighborhood and the silence is absolutely sublime. Airplanes, cars, highway noise, all diminished. The birds and chirps and friendly "Hellos" are amplified. It's bee n marvelous.

I am currently living in Korea and near a motor way. You can estimate the health of the economy by the sound emanating from the motor way.

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#255

Post by pinkfoot »

pinkfoot wrote: post #244
fit2rule wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>noble savage myth Closet racism. There is far more evidence that Europeans destroyed these cultures and ignored their advances, than there is proving this so-called myth. See for example, the Australian FNP. They were far, far more advanced than European propagandists could allow anyone to imagine. We are STILL uncovering major advances in these cultures today.

> … the Australian FNP. They were far, far more advanced than European propagandists could allow anyone to imagine. Other thank some claims about land management and herbal medicine, what were that not only more advanced in but FAR more advanced? Ship building, metallurgy, literature, maths, chemistry, conflict management, law? I am genuinely curious.

Surely its easier to tell us all what the advancements were than downvote me?

I am genuinely curious. [after all propagandists have prevented me from imagining, let alone knowing.]

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#256

Post by netcan »

mwaitjmp wrote: post #236
nroets wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native Americans arrived less than 80,000 years ago. That's a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. They were not the natural predators.

I believe the accepted period is around 15,000 years ago, possibly slightly earlier.

Those dates are in flux recently. As is the pattern in discoveries of our very ancient history... the story gets more complicated as we go.

The fallacy that, IMO, we are falling into is (ironically) caused by scientific reductionism... the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. This doesn't work as well for the evidence types paleoanthropology has to work with.

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#257

Post by wildduck »

diggan wrote: post #19

The same thing is happening in Barcelona but with boars coming from the forests outside the city, seems to have no correlation with the lock-down/quarantine that is happening (streets of Barcelona are basically empty right now, except for ambulances, police and delivery services) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/04/wild-boar-sigh...

Time to make some Spanish ham!

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#258

Post by DonHopkins »

paulmd wrote: post #167
jtaillon wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, this isn't really true (as far as noise is concerned). Noise pollution travels far, and if you're using sensitive equipment, you can easily pick up the noise of planes flying nearby at 30,000 ft.

This is in fact how airplanes were detected before radar was invented. Not a joke. https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/aircraft-detection-radar-19... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_location

Now you've made me want to dress up as an Airplane Detector for Halloween!

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#259

Post by shadowprofile77 »

starky wrote: post #228
as-j wrote: post #37

As 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.

Coyotes are pretty adapted to city living. I know in my city (Vancouver) they are not uncommon to see, even in some pretty densely populated areas of town. I once had one walk right in front of me in a residential area one night, it wandered by so casually that I was sure it was a dog until I was about 5 feet from it.

Reading the comments just above I was just thinking of commenting the same thing for Vancouver, which is why I don't see the big issue with a sighting. In Vancouver when I lived there, they were almost a daily thing even in very urban areas far from a larger forest, and frequently ate pets too. Skunks too. Skunks everywhere and quite brazen for all their fat, waddly slowness.

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#260

Post by ComputerGuru »

djsumdog wrote: post #215
ComputerGuru wrote: post #184

The city of Chicago employees coyotes for rat control. They’re seen all over the metro area and have become familiar faces.

They use coyotes? I thought it was just cats. Huh ... I guess some of those photos of them on the street this week may not have been of wild coyotes like I thought.

Mainly feral cats but there are rats too big for them to go after. The coyote project started around ten years ago, it’s been a great success: https://cei.org/blog/chicago-coyotes-control-mice-and-rats
Post reply on HN