“Twenty-eight,” said one tot.

“A million,” guessed another.

Close enough. The correct answer was six. Today there are at least four fully grown coyotes and an unknown number of April-born pups.

Sun is an environmental education specialist for the Presidio Trust, and he was talking to his young audience as part of a public outreach program about wildlife in the Presidio of San Francisco national park, about 1,500 acres on the northern edge of the San Francisco Peninsula, near the Golden Gate Bridge. The land, full of wooded areas and historical attractions, housed a U.S. Army post from 1847 to 1994. It's now managed by the trust, along with the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

The coyotes have sometimes surprised humans, who also like to use the park. Kay Firth-Butterfield, strolling along Arguello Gate on the south end, once ran into a coyote who started toward her, startling her dog.

“I didn’t think it was threatening, it was just walking towards us," she said, "but the German shepherd was scared stiff and took off running.”

Conflicts between dogs and coyotes arise when canines get too close to coyote dens during the spring and summer pupping season, or when off-leash dogs give chase, said Presidio Trust Wildlife Ecologist Jonathan Young. In recent years, San Francisco has seen several coyote attacks on dogs, some of them reportedly fatal. Bay Area coyotes have also been known to kill cats.

These encounters make public education critical, says Young.

“Fear usually stems from lack of understanding,” he said. “If we can educate the public on what we know, we can ease the fear.”

Recolonizing San Francisco

Coyotes in the Presidio were pushed into local extinction by San Francisco's growing population, and were last seen in the mid-1900s, according to San Francisco's Department of the Environment. But they returned to the park in 2002, following a change in human attitudes.