Bob Schwartz

“Coyotes are known to be resilient and adaptable, and he certainly demonstrated those qualities.”

Few convicts were ever able to escape the prison on Alcatraz Island. It is surrounded by the challenging waters of San Francisco Bay.

It is now confirmed that in January, a coyote swam the two miles from Angel Island to Alcatraz. Scientists are stunned, but knowing coyotes, maybe they shouldn’t be:

Coyote swam 2 miles to Alcatraz Island, going farther than scientists expected

A lone coyote stunned biologists and others when earlier this year it paddled its way to the remote Alcatraz Island, a former federal prison in the San Francisco Bay surrounded by swift, choppy waters notorious for thwarting prisoners’ escapes.

At the time, biologists guessed the coyote swam from San Francisco, which is a little over 1 mile (1.6km) from the fortress. But it turns out the male coyote actually made an even longer swim from nearby Angel Island, 2 miles away.

“Our working assumption was that the coyote made the swim from San Francisco because it is a significantly shorter distance. We couldn’t help being impressed by his accomplishment in making it to Alcatraz,” Bill Merkle, a National Park Service wildlife ecologist, said in a news release on Monday.

“Coyotes are known to be resilient and adaptable, and he certainly demonstrated those qualities,” he said.

Camilla Fox, founder and executive director of non-profit Project Coyote https://projectcoyote.org/ , said the coyote probably departed its home base in search of a mate or new territory to defend. She said coyotes, like wolves, do swim, although it is incredibly rare for humans to spot one doing so.

“We have never, ever heard such a story of a coyote making such a long journey in a pretty challenging ocean current,” she said.

Coyotes are included in 25 of my posts over the last few years. If I let myself go, it might be a hundred. My engagement, respect and admiration for these amazing animals began when we moved to a house surrounded by them. After the 2024 election, I even imagined that we might be better off with a coyote in the White House.

Note: National Coyote Day was celebrated on March 23 and I neglected to talk about it. All I can say is that every day is Coyote Day. After all, Coyote created the world.