Animal control officers on Sunday removed the bagged carcass of an unidentified animal from Warm Water Cove Park after park-goers reported the disturbing discovery.
Noe Valley filmmaker Victoria Lewis, who posted about the discovery on Nextdoor, told The Standard she found the remains in a plastic bag around 1 p.m. Sunday off a paved path about halfway between the park entrance and the bay.
“Children were crying. Families left the park,” Lewis said. “It was just a horrible thing to see.”
She estimated around a dozen people encountered the scene before officers from San Francisco Animal Care and Control arrived.
Deb Campbell, a spokesperson for the agency, said officers collected the remains between 5 and 6 p.m. Those officers believed the animal was either a deer or a goat, Campbell said.
Lewis said the remains appeared to be those of a fawn that had been butchered at the site that morning, noting the precision of the cuts and the organized placement of body parts.
She observed a skinned hide, two feet, and intestines.
“Children saw this. This was Bambi!” she said Monday. “Whoever did this was very insensitive to do it right on the path, where everybody could see it. They didn’t get rid of the remains; they just left it there for everybody to see.”
Lewis regularly visits Warm Water Cove Park as part of her volunteering efforts for a local animal society. She said the park, in an industrial area near the Dogpatch neighborhood, has long faced challenges with illegal dumping and public safety issues, despite volunteer cleanup efforts.
A representative for the Port of San Francisco, which manages the park at the eastern end of 24th Street, said they did not have any information about the incident and referred all questions to animal control.
Campbell said no further investigation is planned. “It’s not unusual for our agency to be called out to pick up the remains of animals slaughtered for food,” she said in an email.
Lewis, asked what she would do or say to the person who left the carcass in the park, spoke plainly: “I would put them under citizen’s arrest.”