The San Francisco Botanical Garden was closed last week after a 5-year-old girl was bitten by a coyote.
The girl was at a summer camp in the garden around 11:15 a.m. on Friday when the coyote bit her on the buttocks, her mother, Helen Sparrow, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
“She started to run, she tripped, and it bit her on the bum when she was down,” the mother said.
Counselors and campers tried to scare the coyote away by yelling and clapping. Paramedics were called, and they treated the girl’s wound with ointment.
Coyotes are known to roam the botanical gardens, with people often sharing photos of close encounters on social media.
Officials from San Francisco Animal Care and Control and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife collected DNA evidence from the bite area. The mother then took her daughter to the emergency room to get stitches and a rabies vaccine, although coyotes rarely have rabies.
“She was mostly fine, just shocked,” Sparrow said.
After the hospital visit, the girl wanted to return to the garden to say goodbye to her friends. The attack happened on the last day of camp.
“They were very surprised to see her,” the mother said. Sparrow doesn’t blame the camp’s organizers or the garden for what happened.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife is taking the incident seriously, though they did not comment to the newspaper. The garden reopened to the public on Monday.