A pack of coyotes pulled off a wild escape from Rikers Island in the wee hours Monday morning.
The four-pawed outlaws dashed over the Rikers Island Bridge, which connects the jail complex to Queens, before fleeing via Hazen Street around 2 a.m.
One of the furry fugitives briefly trapped a reporter in her car — circling and sniffing — before darting into a wooded area.
Coyotes regularly scavenge for food in grassy areas near the jail, according to a guard.
“There’s been four of them running around,” he said.
The coyotes like living on the island because there’s plenty to eat and there are few humans around, said biologist Chris Nagy of Gotham Coyote.
“There aren’t many people outdoors in that area. There are nooks and crannies they can hide in near the bridge. They feed on fish guts and seagull eggs, squirrels or garbage,” Nagy explained.
“They probably found a scrubby tangled area down there,” he said.
The pack of four may be a family hunting for an isolated spot to settle, he added.
The canines look scary — but there’s little reason to fear an attack, according to Nagy.
“It not a zero threat but the risk of them hurting someone is very, very low,” he said.
It’s not the first time coyotes have been spotted lurking in Queens.
Last April, cops captured a coyote in the back yard of a Middle Village home after an elderly woman called 911 when she saw it in her lawn.
A month earlier, another coyote was spotted on the roof of a Long Island City bar.
Another coyote was spotted in the East Village in January and cops captured one in Riverside Park in Manhattan the same month.
Coyotes caught in the five boroughs are released into a Bronx wilderness area by the Parks Department and the city’s Animal Care Center.
The Animal Care Center had no record of coyotes at its facility Monday, a spokesman said.