SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A lone coyote stunned biologists and others when it paddled its way to remote Alcatraz Island earlier this year, a former federal prison in the San Francisco Bay surrounded by swift, choppy waters notorious for thwarting prisoners' escapes.
At the time, biologists guessed the coyote swam from San Francisco, which is a little over 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) from the fortress. But it turns out the male coyote actually made an even longer swim from nearby Angel Island, 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away.
“Our working assumption was that the coyote made the swim from San Francisco because it is a significantly shorter distance. We couldn’t help being impressed by his accomplishment in making it to Alcatraz,” National Park Service wildlife ecologist Bill Merkle said in a Monday news release titled “Alcatraz Coyote Wasn’t a City Boy After All.”
“Coyotes are known to be resilient and adaptable, and he certainly demonstrated those qualities," he said.
Camilla Fox, founder and executive director of nonprofit Project Coyote, said the coyote likely departed its home base in search of a mate or new territory to defend. She said coyotes, like wolves, do swim, although it's incredibly rare for humans to spot one doing so.
“We have never, ever heard such a story of a coyote making such a long journey in a pretty challenging ocean current,” she said.
Video from early January shows the coyote paddling in the chilly San Francisco Bay and then struggling to get onto the rocky island. It was followed by a Jan. 24 visitor sighting and photograph.
Biologists found fresh coyote tracks and scat, which they sent to the University of California, Davis, for DNA analysis. Officials were stunned to learn the swimmer was part of the coyote population on Angel Island.
The park service was prepared to capture and relocate the coyote because of Alcatraz's role as a seabird nesting habitat. But he has never again been spotted or caught on recording devices and there is no evidence the coyote is still on the island.
Alcatraz Island became a federal prison in the 1930s, designed to house the worst criminals, but it closed in the 1960s because its remoteness made it too costly to operate.
Still, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes from Alcatraz. Nearly all were caught or didn't survive the cold, swift current. In 1973, the island reopened as a park.
Angel Island is a state park that once served as a processing and detention center where Chinese and other unwanted immigrants were kept for a couple of days to months, even as long as two years.
It wasn't easy for coyotes to colonize Angel Island, but they persevered, Fox of Project Coyote said. She asks that visitors to the island and other open spaces be mindful not to disturb coyote families and their dens given that it is currently pup season.
FILE - Alcatraz Island is seen in San Francisco, Oct. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
Footage obtained by The Associated Press of a cruise ship at the center of a rare-virus outbreak shows deserted decks and gathering areas, medical teams in protective gear, and a still landscape ahead as the vessel and its nearly 150 passengers and crew waited another day for direction and help off the coast of West Africa.
Three passengers have died and at least four people are sick in what health officials say is an outbreak of hantavirus, which usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings. The World Health Organization said passengers are isolating in their cabins.
The company that operates the vessel — currently anchored in the Atlantic off Cape Verde — said it plans to move to Spain’s Canary Islands once three people have been medically evacuated and put on specially equipped planes to the Netherlands. Earlier Tuesday, Spanish officials said that they were monitoring the situation and hadn't made a decision.
The MV Hondius, a Dutch ship on a weekslong polar cruise, departed April 1 from Argentina for Antarctica and several isolated islands in the South Atlantic.
“Our days have been close to normal, just waiting for authorities to find a solution,” passenger Qasem Elhato, 31 — who sent AP the video footage — said via WhatsApp. “But morale on the ship is high and we’re keeping ourselves busy with reading, watching movies, having hot drinks and that kind of things.”
Helene Goessaert, another passenger, told Belgian broadcaster VRT that everyone onboard is “in the same boat, literally.”
“You don’t embark on a trip with the idea that one of your fellow passengers won’t make it,” she said.
“We receive information at regular intervals. It is accurate. For the rest, it is a waiting game,” she added. “Today we received fresh fruit and fresh vegetables. That was very important to us.”
Authorities in Cape Verde have said they sent teams of doctors, surgeons, nurses and laboratory specialists to the Hondius. They were seen in Elhato's video footage — wearing white overalls, boots and face masks as they disembarked to a smaller vessel.
Officials in Cape Verde’s capital of Praia, a city of less than 200,000 people, said they have stepped up safety protocols, particularly near the port, as a precautionary measure against the rodent-borne illness — which doesn't usually spread person to person, though health authorities say it might be possible.
Elhato said passengers were wearing masks and social distancing — practices that became hallmarks of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said it had implemented its highest level of response plan, with isolation measures, hygiene protocols and medical monitoring.
Oceanwide Expeditions said Tuesday evening that two specialized aircraft were flying to Cape Verde to evacuate two people who need urgent medical care and one other person who was traveling with a German man who died on board Saturday. They were to be taken to the Netherlands, though exactly when that would happen was not immediately clear.
Once the medical evacuation happens, the ship plans to sail to the Canary Islands, either Gran Canaria or Tenerife, a voyage of some three days, the company said in its statement, adding that “discussions are ongoing with relevant authorities.”
Spanish health officials had said in an earlier statement that they were monitoring and that "the most appropriate port of call will be decided. Until then, the Ministry of Health will not adopt any decision, as we have informed the World Health Organization.”
WHO said Tuesday that it's looking at seven cases in all — three people who have died, one critically ill passenger who was previously taken off the ship, and three onboard reporting mild symptoms.
Two of the cases — a woman who died and the evacuated man — tested positive for hantavirus.
A Dutch man was the first death, on April 11. His body was taken off the vessel nearly two weeks later, on the British territory of St. Helena, some 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) off the African coast, according to South Africa’s Department of Health.
His wife traveled by plane from St. Helena to South Africa; she collapsed at a Johannesburg airport and died at a hospital on April 26, according to WHO and the South African Department of Health.
The ship sailed on to Ascension Island, an isolated Atlantic outpost about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) to the north, where a sick British man was taken off the ship and evacuated first to Ascension Island and then to South Africa by plane. He is in intensive care in a South African hospital, according to WHO.
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness, said the organization is investigating possible human-to-human transmission on the ship, and that officials suspect the first infected person likely contracted the virus before boarding. She said officials have been told there are no rats on board.
Officials in Argentina — where hantavirus led to 28 deaths nationwide last year, according to the health ministry — said they confirmed no passengers had symptoms when the Hondius departed. Symptoms can appear up to eight weeks after exposure, officials have said.
In South Africa, authorities said they have started contact tracing — another practice used extensively in the coronavirus pandemic. But officials have emphasized that the chance of a major public health threat is low.
Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria; Risemberg from Dakar, Senegal. AP journalists Suman Naishadham in Madrid; Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg, South Africa; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands; and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.
The MV Hondius cruise ship is anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)
Research scientist Robert Nofchissey prepares samples of inactivated material as part of hantavirus research at the Center for Global Health at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, a cruise ship carrying nearly 150 people remains off Cape Verde on Monday, May 4, 2026 after three passengers died and several others fell seriously ill in a suspected hantavirus outbreak. (Qasem Elhato via AP)
A view of the inside of the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, a cruise ship carrying nearly 150 people as it remains off Cape Verde on Monday, May 4, 2026 after three passengers died and several others fell seriously ill in a suspected hantavirus outbreak. (Qasem Elhato via AP)
Health workers get off the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, a cruise ship carrying nearly 150 people as it remains off Cape Verde on Monday, May 4, 2026 after three passengers died and several others fell seriously ill in a suspected hantavirus outbreak. (Qasem Elhato via AP)
