Coyote scrambles onto Alcatraz Island after perilous, never-before-seen swim
Alcatraz prisoners once risked the perilous waters of San Francisco Bay to escape the island’s high-security prison. Now a cunning coyote was filmed doing the opposite: swimming to Alcatraz Island for the first time.
Videos posted on social networks shows the coyote (Canis latrans) paddling to the southern edge of Alcatraz Island as the sun sets over the bay. The coyote then struggles on the rocky shore of the island, visibly trembling and tired.
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“There’s a reason why people had trouble swimming,” Gehrt told Live Science.
The videos were captured by an unidentified person visiting the island on January 11. They then shared the images with Aidan Moore, a guest relations employee at Alcatraz City Cruises, who alerted park rangers, according to the San Francisco news site. SFGATE reported.
“Coyotes can be seen frequently in our parks in San Francisco and Marin, but never before at Alcatraz,” Julian Espinoza, a spokesperson for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, told SFGATE. “This was the first time our park biologists observed something like this.”
Coyotes are intelligent and versatile creatures known for swimming. Gehrt said he has seen coyotes swimming on Chicago-area lakes as part of his long-term research program, the Urban coyote research project.
“In some cases, they prefer to swim across a lake rather than run around it,” Gehrt said.
However, Gehrt usually only sees coyotes swimming a few hundred yards in relatively calm lake conditions, which are nothing like the waters surrounding Alcatraz. The island sits in the middle of a cold estuary with strong currents – one of the reasons Alcatraz was considered a good location for its now-decommissioned prison.
Some prisoners are presumed to have drowned trying to escape the island, which is more than a mile (1.6 km) from the mainland, and even though humans do the swim recreationally todaythey do this with the help of suits, training and guides.
It’s unclear exactly how the coyote got to Alcatraz Island. The videos begin with the animal already in the water with no sign of its origin. However, Gehrt believes the coyote must have had a difficult journey. “Once he got out of the water, it looked like he had been swimming for a very long time,” he said. “The animals I saw coming out of the water after their swim didn’t look as distraught or as tired and exhausted, so it was clearly quite a long swim.”
Coyotes have already been filmed swim to Angel Islandanother island in the bay, inhabited by coyotes since 2017, television station KCRA 3 previously reported. Angel Island is closer to a mainland coast than Alcatraz. However, Angel Island is north of Alcatraz, so even though it is closer to the mainland north of the Golden Gate Bridge, a coyote on Angel Island would have to swim farther to reach Alcatraz than a coyote on the San Francisco mainland south of the Golden Gate Bridge.
SFGATE reported that the captain of the Alcatraz City Cruises boat informed Moore of unusual currents in the bay, likely the result of runoff from recent storms. It is possible that the coyote was swept away during a shorter swim and ended up near Alcatraz.
Gehrt said coyotes don’t always enter the water voluntarily. They sometimes use it as a way to escape from humans and other coyotes, who are very territorial. However, Gehrt also speculated that this coyote may have been motivated by opportunity, including the potential for food resources and territory.
Coyotes were once confined to the grasslands and deserts of central and western North America. But in the 1800s, humans facilitated their expansion by creating more open habitats through logging, agricultural development, and driving out their competitors, wolves and cougars.
As humans took over more and more land, coyotes have become regular city dwellers. Their flexible nature and diet now help them thrive in cities like San Francisco, where they favor fragments of wooded and shrubby habitats, as well as parks and golf courses.
Christine Wilkinsona conservation scientist who studied Bay Area Coyotes of the University of California, Santa Cruz and the California Academy of Sciences, told SFGATE that the coyote in the video was likely trying to establish its own territory.
Wilkinson suspects the coyote came from a pack in Coit Tower, located on the mainland south of Alcatraz, and where there is little green space for coyotes. Additionally, coyotes wishing to disperse south of Coit Tower would face Interstate 280 and the risk of being struck by a vehicle, so taking to the water might have seemed a safer option.
Coyotes typically search for new territory in the fall and early winter, but it’s not uncommon for that to happen in January, Wilkinson said. Coyotes are also now in the breeding season, which runs from January to March.
No sightings have been reported since the swimming coyote was filmed arriving at Alcatraz. Wilkinson told SFGATE she thought the animal looked “pretty weak,” but added that coyotes are “incredibly resilient.” Wilkinson also noted that the island has plenty of food for a coyote, including eggs, chicks, rats and mice.
Coyotes live in small family groups, consisting of an alpha male, an alpha female and their relatives. Solitary coyotes are generally young individuals, approximately 6 months to 2 years old, of both sexes, who seek to find another group or establish their own territory, depending on the Urban coyote research project. Gehrt recorded one coyote traveling more than 150 miles (240 km) across the southern part of Ohio as part of its natural dispersal, which included crossing the Ohio River.
“This speaks to the animal’s ability to overcome a number of different challenges and its ability to explore and take advantage of any opportunities it can find,” Gehrt said.
