Who Killed San Francisco's Coyotes? Carl Friedman, SFSPCA, and SFDOG, That's Who!! - San Francisco's Dog Blog

We here at San Francisco's Dog Blog, along with many San Franciscans, were shocked and horrified that two coyotes were killed by our government. But unlike some observers, we aren't content to simply decry the slaughter: we want to prevent another immoral killing of wildlife in our city, and to do so we must determine the root cause of the killings. There are several persons and groups who share the blame for these tragedies, and the root causes are really no surprise--at least to those who follow the protection of San Francisco's animals closely.

Carl Friedman Killed San Francisco's Coyotes.

So who killed San Francisco's Coyotes? San Francisco Animal Care and Control (ACC) director Carl Friedman blames the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services, which is the agency that actually shot the coyotes. Although Mr. Friedman made the call that ultimately led to the guns-blazing response to the coyotes presence, Mr. Friedman says he had no idea that the call would result in the coyote slaughter, and now declines to endorse it. But is Mr. Friedman's not-guilty plea plausible?

Only if you believe that Mr. Friedman is institutionally incompetent and ignorant of common practices in animal care and control--and although we here at San Francisco's Dog Blog are highly critical of Mr. Friedman's purposeful anti-wildlife activities, we have never found him to be uninformed (which of course makes him that-much-more culpable for what he does). The extensive literature on Wildlife Services within the animal welfare and control community explodes with outrage over the agency's brutality and predilection for slaughter, and it is simply not plausible that Mr. Friedman--a man who has run an animal control agency for decades--had no idea that his call would lead to the death of the coyotes. After all, destroying wildlife is what they do.

So if ignorance is no defense, why did Mr. Friedman make the call that killed the coyotes? Because Carl Friedman and the agency he runs is so singularly consumed with its domestic animal agenda--a political agenda, we might add--that, as we've explained here countless times, he has completely forsaken his duty to protect and care for San Francisco's wild animals.

Up to this point, Mr. Friedman's callous temperament towards wildlife has been most evident on issues where domestic animals impinge on the ability of wildlife to survive in our city (off-leash dogs harassing birds, feral cats killing birds and infecting sea otters, etc.) As editors who love our dogs as if they were our own flesh and blood, we could at least conceptually understand the moral quandary these issues might put a man of Mr. Friedman's position in, if not agree with his actions.

But the knee-jerk killing of these coyotes explodes any myth that Mr. Friedman is a man torn between competing animal causes, and shows instead that he maintains a perverse relationship with the wild, maintaining a vendetta against those who he cannot domesticate and control. Remember, this is the same man who brought us the innovation of Dog Court, ensuring that even dogs that maul a person in San Francisco receive some due process before they are muzzled or euthanized. Yet for wildlife he shows no such compassion or commitment to process: he pushed the domino that any competent animal control officer knows will inevitably lead to acute lead poisoning of wildlife.

Mr. Friedman's relationship with nature is better suited for the 19th Century, as he consistently uses 19th Century tactics to deal with wildlife. It is a deadly, morally bankrupt choice for a man with 21st Century power and responsibilities.

SFSPCA Killed San Francisco's Coyotes.

The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to [domestic] Animals (SFSPCA) is another group that shares blame for the killings. How is that, you might ask? Because the SFSPCA runs a program promoting feral cat hoarding on public lands, which in turn leads to wild animals being indirectly fed by individuals who would be arrested if they conducted this behavior in their homes.

Of course we are talking about the SFSPCA's trap-neuter-return (TNR) program for feral cats. Now we here at San Francisco's Dog Blog are all for reducing the number of feral cats in San Francisco by the most humane method possible, not only because we are pro-wildlife, but also because feral cats lead lives of unimaginable hardship. The problem with the SFSPCA's program is that it isn't designed with the goal of reducing the feral cat population to zero, but sustaining the population so that its mentally-deranged volunteers--and animal hoarding is a mental disease--can continue hoarding animals on public property in perpetuity.

How can we make such bold claims? Because in order for a TNR program to succeed, two things must occur: (1) an exceptionally high percentage of the entire feral cat population--not just animals associated with an individual colony--must be trapped and neutered before populations can stabilize, let alone decline, because cats, of course, breed like cats; and (2) food subsides must be eliminated. The SFSPCA has absolutely no evidence that it is capturing enough cats to make the program effective: as famously made clear before the Animal Welfare and Control Commission last year, The SFSPCA keeps no data on a population level, and only looks at colonies, which are known to be transient, to try and promote the program's effectiveness. But moreover, it is a central tenet of the program that the cat-hoarding volunteers feed the cats by leaving food out for the animals in our parks, increasing the feral cats' carrying capacity and ensuring the population's growth.

And more pertinently to this post, the food that is left out is also eaten by wild animals. Opossums, skunks, and yes, coyotes eat the food left out by animal hoarders participating in this failed program, eliminating their wildness and bringing these animals closer to the dangerous end of a Wildlife Services' rifle. Even Captain Vicki Guldbech of ACC recognized this, stating in the Chronicle last year that "[i]f people leave out dog and cat food, [the coyotes] will keep eating it and they will not hunt."

The SFSPCA, by consistently ignoring scientific evidence on TNR programs and promoting the feeding of wild animals through its failed TNR program helped kill these coyotes, and the group should be held responsible.

SF DOG Killed San Francisco's Coyotes.

Last, but not least, San Francisco DOG killed San Francisco's coyotes. How is that, you ask? An answer to this question can be found in a close examination of the last acts of these coyotes in Golden Gate Park.

San Francisco contains an exceptionally large number of safe, legal off-leash dog parks: at least 28, and in a city that is only seven square miles, that gives San Francisco the highest density of dog parks of any city in the Nation, probably the world. San Francisco has more off-leash dog parks than Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, and Los Angeles COMBINED.

Yet anti-leash groups like SF DOG aren't satisfied. They continue to claim that there is not enough space for off-leash dogs to roam in San Francisco, despite the evidence. Indeed, on July 26, Sally Stephens, the self-appointed leader of the anti-leash organization, sent an e-mail missive demanding even more off-leash areas in San Francisco's parks, and attacking San Francisco's award-winning and progressive Natural Areas Program because it doesn't adhere to her anti-leash philosophy.

So SF DOG advocates disobedience of the leash law everywhere in San Francisco. Which is precisely what this woman who claims her Rhodesian ridgeback was attacked by coyotes was doing, walking her dog off-leash in a portion of Golden Gate Park where off-leash dogs aren't allowed.

But you read that the dogs were on-leash, didn't you? Of course you did: any person caught in such a situation must say so to the authorities in order to avoid a substantial fine. But for those who frequent this area, they know that the woman is lying: she walks her dogs regularly off-leash in these areas, often to the consternation of other dog-owners, and the odds are long that the one day her dog interacts with a coyote it was on-leash. Even her own alibi indicates that her dog was off-leash: there is no way a dog on-leash can run "12-feet" from its owner towards a dangerous situation, even on a flexi-leash, before being recalled. Moreover, there is no way that a coyote, a relatively small animal, would attack two Rhodesian ridgebacks leashed to a human. It simply doesn't happen like that.

If SF DOG weren't so single minded, it would stop its anti-leash agenda and work for the betterment of all animals. By promoting an ideology where flouting leash laws is OK, SF DOG bears responsibility for the demise of these coyotes.

Carl Friedman. SFSPCA. SF DOG. These three entities have been the source of much mischief for our dogs and their wild cousins. It is time for reform. It may be too late for these coyotes, but we can still honor their memory by changing the way this cabal does business in the City of St. Francis.

San Francisco Dog Owner Group Defends the KKK - San Francisco's Dog Blog

Any dog owner who's been in San Francisco since the dot-com boom busted has seen them: self-centered, irresponsible dog owners refusing to consider how they and their dog(s) affect the lives of others. Emboldened by the anti-social philosophy of the SF SPCA and the single-minded, reactionary politics of San Francisco Dog Owner Group, these folks have flocked to our City, and they have single handedly made life for the rest of us more difficult.

Things are about to get worse. On January 22, 2007, Guy Clark, the gay African-American proprietor of Guy's Flowers in Duboce Triangle, had his storefront vandalized. This was no ordinary graffiti incident: the infamous "KKK" was tagged on his door.

The primary suspects of this hate crime are--you guessed it--irresponsible dog owners. According to an article published in Bay Area Reporter on January 25, 2007, Mr. Clark had been requesting that dog owners not, ahem, "spoil" the merchandise for many years. Unfortunately, according to Mr. Clark about 10% of them become combative when asked to mind the store, reacting in boorish ways:

• Some have called Mr. Clark the "N-word";
• Some have thrown dog poop on his door;
• Others have questioned his employment status;
• One irresponsible dog owner even harassed him while the police were taking the hate crime report;
• And now the KKK-bomb was dropped.

Unfortunately in Mr. Clark's mind, there is no longer any way to separate out the irresponsible dog owner from the racist hate monger:

"I could see a dog owner getting very offended, a minority telling them to curb your dog," said Clark. "They feel insulted that a minority is telling them about etiquette."

When facing such a public relations fiasco, you'd think that the self-appointed leaders of anti-leash groups such as Sally Stephens of San Francisco Dog Owner Group might think twice before aligning herself with the dog-owning faction of the KKK. But apparently the siren-song of irresponsibility is too strong of a pull. In response to this terrible event Ms. Stephens found it in her heart to offer this bit of wisdom to Mr. Clark:

"'When a dog's got to go you have to find a place for it to go,' said Stephens."

Guy's Flowers was voted best flower shop by the two city weekly newspapers last year for Clark's low prices and lack of hard selling. Too bad Sally Stephens can't take a brake from her hard spinning and recognize that just because the KKK owns dogs doesn't mean she has to defend them.

If You Love Dogs, Leash Your Dog - San Francisco's Dog Blog

San Francisco has more off-leash dog play areas per square mile than any other city in the United States. We are blessed to have a large number of these essential recreation spaces distributed throughout the City.

Which is why it is so confounding that so many of our City's dog owners refuse to leash their dogs OUTSIDE of legal DPAs.

After all, we are not the same city we were six years ago. Back then there were hardly any official places to take your dog off-leash in San Francisco. Today we have 28 DPAs within the City's boundaries, providing a wide variety of off-leash recreational opportunities. Per square mile, that's more places to run dogs than any other city in the country, maybe the world.

We have also suffered major public relations fiascoes in the past few years: the highly publicized dog-mauling deaths of Nicholas Faibish and Dianne Whipple. In both cases, the dogs who killed were "off-leash dogs," with Rex and Ella regularly seen in the Faibish's neighborhood unleashed, and Bane and Hera allowed to run off-leash in Alta Plaza Park, occasionally with violent consequences.

In spite of our changed circumstances, self-appointed canine advocates continue to claim that there aren't enough off-leash spaces for dogs in San Francisco, and that therefore leash laws in the City should not be enforced. For example, a group calling itself "San Francisco Dog Owners Group" has created a "Pet Policy" that states leash laws shall not be enforced "until (and unless) adequate space is designated for off-leash recreation . . . in every neighborhood." Of course, the group's Pet Policy does not define "adequate" or "neighborhood," so there is no objective way to tell if these criteria will ever be met to the group's satisfaction.

Perhaps seven years ago such a Pet Policy could conceivably be thought of as advancing the welfare of our dogs. But today, when we have more off-leash dog play areas per square mile than any other city in the United States, the policy seems like an anachronism. Yet the San Francisco Dog Owners Group continues to claim that San Francisco has inadequate off-leash space, and fights leash law enforcement at every opportunity. In the view of those of us here at San Francisco's Dog Blog, it is clear that the small group of individuals pushing for ever more off-leash dog space cannot be considered pro-dog anymore, only anti-leash.

Unfortunately for responsible dog owners and the rest of the City, it appears that the San Francisco Dog Owner Group's anti-leash philosophy has a sympathizer in Carl Friedman, director of Animal Care and Control. Indeed, at the October 10, 2006 Dog Advisory Commission meeting, Mr. Friedman, the person charged by taxpayers with enforcing animal welfare and control laws, stated that there is no possibility of leash law enforcement in city parks, period. Apparently company policy is to wait until something bad happens--a dog is attacked, a person is bitten, a pet is lost, etc.--and then issue a post-hac rationalization/citation. As a result, it is essentially impossible to take a dog anywhere in San Francisco without being confronted with off-leash dogs.

The adverse consequences of Mr. Friedman's abdication of his responsibilities is borne out in many ways, but perhaps those who are harmed the most are those of us who work tirelessly to rehabilitate aggressive, dangerous, or unbalanced dogs in the City. To understand why, lets take an example from this month's Whole Dog Journal (subscription required), a local publication with national renown:

The Real World

A friend, a very knowledgeable pet owner, with a shy/reactive dog, e-mailed me about a setback she and her dog experienced recently. She wrote, "I keep getting caught up in the fact that I can't control the environment." Well, none of us can, though we can do what we can to prepare.

My friend's dog is about eight years old. It is only in the past year he has been able to stay calm enough to accept food treats when he is outside, even with no dogs or other animals in sight. She's done tremendous work with him, and her patience and dedication are impressive. She has recently begun walking the dog on leash in a state park. When she saw other people with dogs approaching, she would move off the trail with her dog--thus increasing the distance between her dog and a potential trigger--and click and treat (using peanut butter in a squeeze tube).

The tactic worked well. At least until recently, on a walk in the state park, an off-leash dog ran up as she and her dog waited off the trail, dashing right into her dog's face in an attempt to take his treat! It only took a moment for the off-leash dog to close the space between them, and not surprisingly, a fight broke out. Skin was broken. It was a nasty setback for her work with her dog. For a time, she despaired of the idea of ever taking her dog out on the trails again. she lost sight of their huge progress, and fixated on all that might be lost.

The article goes on to explain that the dog owner eventually got the gumption to start again, but now she is forced to find ways to keep her dog in controlled environments, that is, not in our public parks where off-leash dogs illegally roam.

For now, put aside arguments about the equity of this de facto exclusion of this woman and her dog from public parks. Instead, imagine you are this "friend," this "very knowledgeable pet owner," and you live in San Francisco. You've spent 7 years trying to rehabilitate your sweet but anxious dog so it can simply enjoy some treats in the out-of-doors. You look for some place in the city to continue your dog's training and socialization process, without the risk of being approached by an off-leash dog, a known trigger. According to Carl Friedman, the place you are looking for simply doesn't exist: he can't be bothered to enforce leash laws, even in on-leash only areas in city parks, so you simply cannot take your dog anywhere in San Francisco to continue the dog's rehabilitation process.

If stunting animal rehabilitation efforts was simply an unintended consequence of Mr. Friedman and San Francisco Dog Owner Group's anti-leash philosophy, perhaps this problem could be overlooked or corrected. Unfortunately, this isn't unintended: San Francisco Dog Owner Group believes it is proper to reserve our public spaces for the exclusive use of certain dogs and their owners, at the expense of those dog owners who are actually attempting to rehabilitate dogs that would otherwise be euthanized.

Need proof? Take a look at this excerpt from an "open letter" sent by Kassie Maxwell, the self-described "webdog" of the San Francisco Dog Owner Group, to the guardian of an adopted disabled dog who asked the Police commission to enforce leash laws in on-leash only areas so he would have a safe place to take his disabled pet outdoors:

Also, because [NAME REMOVED FOR PRIVACY] has adopted a dog with a disability, it is up to him to protect and exercise this dog is [SIC] areas where it is safe to do so. This can sometimes require some creativity on his part, but it is his responsibility - not everyone's [SIC] else's, and public policy should not revolve around his own personal situation . . . . If I were down at the Police Commission meetings complaining about other people's dogs when mine was the one with the problem, that would have been an incredibly selfish and imbalanced reaction to the situation.

Well, there you have it: a person who adopts a disabled dog, a dog that likely would have faced certain death if the person hadn't adopted it, is "incredibly selfish and imbalanced" for requesting a safe, on-leash area in San Francisco to take the dog outside.

At least we can be thankful that the San Francisco Dog Owner Group has made it quite clear that it's anti-leash agenda is more important to the group than the well being of disabled and rehabilitated pets. For the rest of us who strive to be responsible dog owners and would like to share city parks with dogs of all stripes (and number of legs), show your love of dogs by leashing your dogs in our on-leash only open spaces.