It felt like a scene from an old "Road Runner" episode when animal control officers were dispatched to San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood Thursday morning to rescue a coyote that wandered onto southbound Interstate 280. Fortunately they needed no Acme Corporation products to corral the animal and bring it to safety. (Steve Rotman/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND)
Animal control officers aren’t usually tasked with traffic duties, but try telling that to workers with San Francisco Animal Care and Control who found themselves having to reroute a wily coyote that somehow made its way onto a busy freeway last week.
A “super genius” he was not. A coyote that made its way onto southbound I-280 in San Francisco on Thursday morning heads down an off-ramp with the help of officers from the San Francisco Police Department, CHP and San Francisco Animal Care and Control. (SFACC via Bay City News)
SF Animal Care received a report Thursday morning of a coyote hiding behind yellow sand barrels along the side of southbound Interstate 280 near Mission Bay. With a little help from California Highway Patrol and police officers, the coyote was escorted off the freeway safely, an animal control spokesperson said.
“The coyote was healthy and unharmed, just a little tired,” said the spokesperson.
SF Animal Care and Control said that they are always there to assist coyotes (as well as other wild creatures) that may need a helping hand. The department estimates that there are at least 100 coyotes that live in the city. Anyone can call emergency dispatch at 415-554-9400 to report an animal.
Katy St. Clair got her start in journalism by working in the classifieds department at the East Bay Express during the height of alt weeklies, then sweet talked her way into becoming staff writer, submissions editor, and music editor. She has been a columnist in the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 2015, she begrudgingly scaled the inverted pyramid at dailies such as the Vallejo Times-Herald, The Vacaville Reporter, and the Daily Republic. She has her own independent news site and blog that covers the delightfully dysfunctional town of Vallejo, California, where she also collaborates with the investigative team at Open Vallejo. A passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities, she serves on both the Board of the Arc of Solano and the Arc of California. She lives in Vallejo.
