Coyote Who Made It to Alcatraz Will Soon Get the Boot

A lone coyote's record-setting swim to Alcatraz may end with a one-way trip back to the mainland. National Park Service staff say they plan to capture and relocate the animal—believed to be about a year old—after it somehow crossed from San Francisco to the 22-acre island, something rangers say hasn't happened since the service took over Alcatraz in 1972. The coyote was captured in a photograph on Saturday, reports the BBC, and rangers say they've noted tracks, scat (which has been sent out for DNA analysis), and the picked-over remains of at least one bird, reports SF Gate.

That last element, park officials say, is the problem. Alcatraz is a major seabird rookery, home to some of the Bay Area's largest nesting colonies of Brandt's cormorants and western gulls. Thousands more birds are expected to arrive within days for the nesting season, which runs from February to September. A park rep says a single new predator in a dense nesting area could be "devastating" for the birds' breeding grounds.

Add in the challenges that the coyote would face in the long-term, including a lack of fresh water sources on the island, and removal is emerging as the best option for "Floyd"—named for Bonnie and Clyde getaway driver Floyd Hamilton, who tried to escape Alcatraz by swimming but turned back. The plan, if the animal doesn't leave on its own within about a week, is to "humanely trap and remove" it, then move it to a better habitat somewhere outside San Francisco.