TAKING OVER

Wild Animals Reclaim San Francisco and LA After Cities Empty Over COVID-19

A brown bear was spotted in Arcadia, California Saturday morning, while coyotes stalked the streets of San Francisco.

As California streets empty under the stay-at-home measures to “flatten the curve” of the novel coronavirus outbreak, wild animals have come to reclaim their domain. Early morning on March 25, a television crew in Los Angeles spotted a massive black bear wandering the streets of Arcadia, CA. The bear took a tour of the area, knocking over trashcans on Topaz Place, before making his way to Canyon Road around to knock down a few more, and then returning to the Angeles National Forest. “The bear, presumably looking for breakfast, left a trail of knocked-over trash cans in its wake,” Los Angeles Times reporter Luke Money wrote. Meanwhile, coyotes have started to stalk the streets of San Francisco, the city which first received its shelter-in-place mandate on March 16. A Twitter user named @manishkumar457 posted a video the slender, brown animal on a sidewalk, next to a sign for The Grubb Co. Realtors. Another user, named BathtubBulletin, found a second in the weeds of Glen Canyon Park. “Unexpected things happening, maybe as a result of shelter in place,” a third Twitter account @GiannaToboni wrote. “My brother just spotted three coyotes in front of my parents’ house in San Francisco.”