san francisco — A lone wolf stunned biologists and others when it made its way into a remote location Alcatraz Island Earlier this year, a former federal prison in San Francisco Bay, surrounded by fast, choppy waters, became notorious for thwarting prisoner escapes.
At the time, biologists guessed that the wolf swam from San Francisco, which is just over a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the castle. But it turns out that the male wolf actually made a longer swim from nearby Angel Island, 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away.
“Our working assumption was that the coyote made the swim from San Francisco because it’s a much shorter distance. The Alcatraz Coyote Wasn’t a City Boy at All,” Bill Merkle, a wildlife ecologist with the National Park Service, said in a Monday news release titled “Alcatraz Coyote Wasn’t a City Boy at All.”
“Coyotes are known to be resilient and adaptable, and he certainly demonstrated those traits,” he said.
The coyote likely left its home base in search of a mate or new territory to defend, said Camilla Fox, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Project Coyote. Coyotes, like wolves, swim, although it is extremely rare for humans to spot one doing so, she said.
“We have never heard such a story about a wolf making such a long journey in a challenging ocean current,” she said.
A video from early January shows a coyote paddling into the cold San Francisco Bay and then struggling to reach the rocky island. This was followed by the visitor being seen and photographed on 24 January.
Biologists found fresh wolf tracks and droppings and sent them to UC Davis for DNA analysis. Officials were stunned to learn that the swimmer was part of a coyote pack on Angel Island.
The park service was prepared to capture and relocate the wolf due to Alcatraz’s role as a seabird nesting habitat. But it was never spotted or captured again on recording devices, and there is no evidence that the wolf is still on the island.
Alcatraz Island became a federal prison in the 1930s, designed to house the worst criminals, but it was closed in the 1960s because its remote location made it too expensive to operate.
However, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes from Alcatraz. Almost all of them were caught or did not survive the fast cold current. In 1973, the island was reopened as a park.
Angel Island is a state park that once served as a processing and detention center where Chinese immigrants and other unwanted immigrants were held for anywhere from two days to months, and even up to two years.
It wasn’t easy for coyotes to colonize Angel Island, but they persevered, said Fox of the Coyote Project. She asks visitors to the island and other open spaces to be careful not to disturb coyote families and dens since this is currently pup season.