Alex Amend was driving an Uber near Cambridge’s Fresh Pond in the wee hours of a November morning when he spotted an animal scurrying out of sight. A dog, he thought at first.
Then he saw another one, standing tall and proud in the middle of a crosswalk. There was no mistaking it: a coyote. A big one, with dark fur and a bushy tail, paying no mind to his idling car a few yards away (or the do-not-walk signal), until an alert sounded on Amend’s phone, prompting the animal to saunter away.
“It’s not every day you see that,” said 26-year-old Amend, who lives in Somerville and now works in tech sales.
As neighboring towns develop more of their green space, experts say coyotes are being spotted more often in recent years making themselves at home in local parks and playgrounds, and feasting on rats and rabbits.
“They just come in more,” said Christine Correia, director of Cambridge’s Animal Commission. “Nowadays I feel like they’re just walking right through Harvard Square and Central Square.”
A growing coyote presence has also become a topic of concern in recent years in other municipalities.
The town of Wrentham was in a tizzy in December after two dogs were killed back-to-back in suspected coyote attacks. In Arlington, which borders Cambridge, town officials in 2022 said they were forced to put a coyote down after a resident had reportedly been feeding it, eroding its fear of humans.
In Cambridge, a city better known for its busy squares full of people than for predators on the prowl, coyotes sun themselves in athletic fields or lounge in the middle of paved walkways.
They jaywalk through intersections or prance across driveways during postal workers’ early morning delivery routes.
They massacre rodents and leer at off-leash chihuahuas at Fresh Pond.
Coyotes tend to make themselves known in the winter mating season in particular, and every year at this time officials remind fearful dog owners and new arrivals to the city that this is coyotes’ home, too.
“We have coyotes in Cambridge. They’ve always been here. If we can just try to educate people to keep everyone safe, especially their pets, that’s what we try to do,” Correia said.
A few weeks ago, Dan Nudel, 36, who lives near Danehy Park, a Cambridge coyote hot spot, posted images online of a coyote lounging in the park early one morning. “A cool humanity-meets-wilderness experience,” he said.
But in comments on social media, some voiced concern and called for the sighting to be reported to the authorities.
“I’m very much of the camp that urban coyotes are here, and we should respect them and enjoy them, and not be calling our animal control all the time to take care of them, because we’ll just end up killing them,” Nudel said.
Unless a coyote is gravely injured, rabid, or otherwise poses an urgent safety risk, the city simply lets it be, Correia said. The city takes the opportunity where possible to promote “coyote awareness” and remind humans that the predators are typically docile so long as people keep a healthy distance, she added.
For plenty of residents, the coyotes are a source of whimsy, and nothing more.
Ani, a Somerville resident who preferred not to have her last name published to protect her privacy, said she was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when she glanced out the window of a car passing through Cambridge and spotted a coyote at close range.
“I was like, ‘Oh! That’s a ‘yote! At eye-level with me!’ ” she recalled, using a term she used for the critters growing up in Maine. “I’m always delighted when I see a coyote standing there looking confused at the corner of Reservoir and Fayerweather [streets], like it’s trying to figure out where Formaggio is.”
Mark Donohue, 42, said he has come to expect coyotes on his daily dog walks around his home near Cambridge parkland.
Sometimes, there are howls. A neighbor recently heard the sounds of struggles with foxes in a marsh.
Not that it bothers him.
“You hear people pearl-clutching about it,” Donohue said. “But honestly I’m more concerned about entitled dog owners with off-leash dogs. My dog has been attacked by off-leash dogs a few times. The coyote is encouraging those dog owners to keep their dog on a leash, so that’s a win in my experience.”
Some of the coyotes stick around long enough that officials get to know them as individuals.
One, an elder coyote, has recently been sticking to Danehy Park, said Correia, the animal commissioner. A family of coyotes appears to be living in a local cemetery.
A female that has been seen wandering Cambridge streets is recognizable for her distinctive and lustrous coat — “a really beautiful blonde,” Correia said.
Sometimes Correia harasses, or “hazes,” the coyotes by making loud noises with an air horn, so they don’t get too close to their human neighbors. It’s safer that way for all, she said.
“We just want people to appreciate them from a distance. And we want to keep them wild and wary,” Correia said. “We don’t want them to get too comfortable. But at the same time, we want to coexist.”
Spencer Buell can be reached at spencer.buell@globe.com. Follow him @SpencerBuell.