San Francisco-Still Wild at Heart
by Melissa Peabody
color, 57 min, 2007
institutional price includes public performance rights
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As San Francisco grapples with what it means to have coyotes as new residents, along comes San Francisco-Still Wild At Heart, a compelling one-hour natural history film that chronicles the return of coyotes to this city's landscape. Lyrical in style, the film is a virtual case study of the coyote's arrival in urban America, as it explores the complexity, conflicts, and richness of this fertile interface between urban life and wild nature.
As the film tracks the arrival of coyotes to San Francisco over the past several years-and we learn through DNA evidence where at least one of them has come from-it becomes abundantly clear that the re-colonization of the city by coyotes has begun. To learn what impacts to expect on the city's ecosystem, we visit a scientist studying coyotes in Chicago, where more than 2,000 of these wild creatures live today. And scientists advise on how we can coexist safely with this resilient top predator.
The expansion of coyote populations across the national landscape also poses challenges and opportunities for rural and agricultural communities. But in rural west Marin County, ranchers participating in an innovative predator-control program are finding success in a mix of humane, non-lethal predator-control tools that protect livestock and reduce conflicts with coyotes. And their success suggests new paradigms for managing urban coyotes as well.
The return of coyotes to San Francisco, in fact, heralds a new "greening" of the city, where the resurgence of many species of wildlife is taking place-both natives and non-natives alike. Through beautiful and original footage, the film features entertaining segments on coyotes and other wild creatures-quail, foxes, raccoons, herons, possums, owls, and parrots-that survive and thrive in the challenging habitat of our modern American city.
San Francisco-Still Wild At Heart is a tribute to these wild lives, and a celebration of their unique value and importance to our urban communities. And it is an invitation to reconsider our own relationship to wild nature, and our place in the natural world.
Film Festivals, Screenings, Awards
Wisconsin Film Festival, 2008
Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival, Seattle, WA, 2008