Press Releases

Hal the Coyote Captured by NYPD at Approximately 10:00 a.m.

The NYPD Emergency Service Unit (ESU) captured and tranquilized a young male coyote on the south side of the 79^th Street transverse near Belvedere Castle at approximately 10:00 a.m. today. The animal was first seen at 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning at the 66^th Street Transverse and identified as a "wolf." Numerous sightings were made by the public since then.

Central Park Conservancy staff located the coyote yesterday in the area around the Hallett Nature Sanctuary, opposite 59th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Conservancy staff worked with Urban Park Rangers and Parks Enforcement Patrol officers to track the animal and safeguard the public and their pets. At the request of the Parks Department and Central Park Conservancy, the NYPD Emergency Service Unit began its search for the coyote on Tuesday afternoon, and after several "near misses," stopped their search after dark. They resumed at daybreak this morning. Sightings were reported throughout the morning in the southern region of the park, and it was finally cornered at the Hallett Nature Sanctuary at approximately 8:00 a.m. this morning. The animal then escaped and headed north towards The Ramble, where it was captured at approximately 10:00 a.m.

"The Coyote who made a surprise visit to Central Park was captured thanks to the professional work of the Central Park Conservancy and the Parks Department’s Urban Park Rangers and Park Enforcement Patrol, who first found and tracked down the animal," said Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe. "It was the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit (ESU) officers who did such a skillful job of tracking the animal over twenty hours and tranquilizing it in the most humane way, with the assistance of the police from the NYPD’s Central Park Police Precinct."

The approximately one-year-old male coyote was examined by Animal Care and Control who pronounced it healthy. It will be taken to a wildlife rehabilitator upstate. This is the second time in seven years a coyote has made its way into Central Park. It is not clear how it arrived in Central Park, but it most likely came in from Westchester County and down through the Bronx before crossing into Manhattan.

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