City coyote Illustration by Tom Bachtell

New York has always attracted outsiders. Last Monday, one showed up on the rooftop of LIC Bar, in Long Island City. Neighbors noticed a fur coat slinking around: a coyote. Someone called the authorities. Sarah Aucoin, the director of the Urban Park Rangers, was among the first to hear the news. “It probably came over the Triborough Bridge,” she said. “The bar had a band called the Coyote Anderson Quartet playing that night. It was too weird.” After a while, the coyote hopped onto an adjacent rooftop and vanished.

Twenty years ago, there were virtually no coyotes with New York City addresses, but they have been coming down from Westchester lately, making their way through green corridors of restored parkland, where there’s good eating. “A breeding pair establishes a territory, and the young disperse, looking for new territories,” Aucoin explained. There have been a dozen coyote sightings in New York City in the past year. They like golf courses, favoring the fairways in Pelham Bay Park, where many have been spotted around the greens, chasing golf balls. This winter, a female, dubbed Riva by the N.Y.P.D., appeared on a basketball court in Riverside Park, near Seventy-fourth Street. A coyote was seen heading toward the Lincoln Tunnel. A few have turned up on the campus of Columbia University. In late January, one was found near Stuyvesant Town. “Stuy Town is no place for a coyote,” Aucoin said.

On a recent Saturday, the rangers hosted a presentation on coyotes at the Van Cortlandt Nature Center, in the Bronx. Adelaida Duran Ruiz, a.k.a. Ranger Deli, stood at the front of the room, which was packed with adults in zip-up fleeces and a couple of enthralled kids. The rangers wore cargo pants, neckties, and ranger hats. Four questions were scribbled on a whiteboard, which Ranger Deli read aloud: “Do you want to learn about coyotes?” “Do you want to coexist with coyotes?” “Would you like to see a coyote?” “Are you afraid of coyotes?” Hands went up for the first three; there was no reaction to the fourth. “It’s O.K. to admit!” a ranger called out from the back. That was Jessica Carrero, who has seen nine coyotes—more than any of her colleagues. “I have been a ranger for twenty-seven years,” Ranger Deli said. “In all those years, I have seen one once.”

Ranger Deli outlined key coyote facts. They are grayish brown, they have yellow eyes, and they eat a lot of rodents. “This means we should be happy to have them here, so they can eat the rats and mice,” she said. In spring, females give birth, and the parents venture out in search of food. City coyotes are hardy. “There’s about a sixty-per-cent chance of a coyote getting to be one year old in a city,” Carrero said. “Most of those who die are going to be killed by cars.” She added, “A twelve-year-old coyote is really rare. That particular coyote is really, really good at crossing the street.”

Coyotes are smart. Wily? “I’d say wary is a better word for them,” Aucoin said. Ranger Deli explained what to do if you see one and it’s displaying nuisance behavior (that’s a technical term). “What you are going to do is appear bigger than you are, start making noises, and back away,” she said. “Do not turn around and run. ”

A seventy-five-year-old woman named Rose told the rangers that she often sees a coyote on her morning walks (and once, recently, on Broadway and 251st Street). The group headed off to follow Rose’s regular trail. Judy Judd, who has long gray hair and wore jeans tucked into boots, kept her eyes open. She’d spotted the coyote that was picked up in Riverside Park this winter. “There were about three hundred people who called,” she said. “I was not among them, because I want that coyote to eat the rats.”

Lynn Kraus, a friend of Judd’s, said that she saw one in Riverside Park a few years ago. “He was gorgeous,” she said. “I guess he had his winter coat still. Just a perfect physical specimen of a coyote. I’ve seen them in the Southwest, and they’re pretty small. But this one was pretty damn impressive.”

Judd nodded. “I had a dog that was half coyote,” she said. “I lived in New Mexico.” She continued, “That dog could climb over anything. It was the only dog I ever had to tell to get off the refrigerator.”

The group followed the rangers back to the Nature Center. “They tend to use train tracks as their highways,” Kraus said. “They’re on their way to Long Island. They’ve made it to Suffolk County.” “The Hamptons?” someone asked. Judd nodded. “And I can’t say I blame them.” ♦