On a sunny afternoon in Coyote Park, many species of wildlife can be seen. On this particular day, guests of the park are treated to a glimpse of an animal not normally indigenous in the Bay Area, or anywhere else for that matter: a bright green kangaroo.

The kangaroo's name is Duncan, and he's at the park to get some photos for a "Going Green" campaign for local elementary schools. He also worked in a quick game of tag with the growing crowd of excited children.

"It's really a kick to see how much fun the kids have with it. To them it may as well be a real kangaroo," he said.

Duncan, brought to life by Bay Area resident Greg Edwards, is just one of many non-indigenous animals that can, on occasion, be seen wandering around the Bay Area. Known as "fursuiters", the group's hobby is to dress up in a variety of colorful, furry animal suits. The fursuits are just one of the many aspects of a large subculture known as furry.

"People assume furries are all about fursuits, but it goes deeper than that," said Bobby Ngo, who works in tech support professionally. Ngo has been performing in character for over a decade. He helps out with community events, performing in parades and at amusement parks all over the Bay Area.

According to Ngo, the fandom covers a wide range of art and culture like stories, fables, comics, animation and illustrations. They also explore the human condition through animal parables, animal transformation, identification with animal aspects and spirit/totemism.

"It's simply that the most visually striking and publicly identifiable part of furry is the fursuits," Ngo said.

The Bay Area hosts a furry convention every year. In January, over 2,500 people attended Further Confusion, which hosts a fursuit parade that hosted about 550 pad-footed participants, though it's estimated even more were in attendance. Further Confusion is one of the numerous furry conventions held across the United States and in Canada, Europe and Australia.

Aside from official conventions, many fursuiters make professional and personal event appearances. Last year's Improv Everywhere, a traveling improv troupe, saw a few fursuiters among the crowd, and it's rare to see a parade anywhere in the Bay that doesn't have a few people in animal mascot costumes.

Not everyone in the mascot business is part of the fursuiting crowd. Jill Johansen, a mascot engineer for Street Characters, designs and helps build suits.

"I get requests to build fursuits sometimes," Johansen said. "Sometimes the people can be creepy, but most of them are pretty cool about it. I had this one guy that asked me what type of fur was okay to shower in so he never had to take his horse suit off."

Shows like "CSI" and "Entourage" perpetuated the stereotype that fursuiting is strictly a sexual kink. According to the 2009 Furry Survey, a census done within the fandom, 18 percent of furries are fursuiters, and less than 50 percent consider sex in their suits a significant part of their lives.

Many fursuiters, Edwards among them, keep their activities strictly G-rated. Furries have gotten a negative representation in the media but, in the Bay Area, which hosts porn conventions and bondage fairs, romping around in a wolf costume can seem fairly tame.

"If it's about sex, I'm usually either in a suit or my partner is, but we're never both in suit," said Daniel North, one of the Bay Area's many fursuiters. "It's hard, because you're basically cocooned in fur. You can't see, you can't breathe well, and little pieces of fur get everywhere-- in your mouth, up your nose, all over."

North pointed out that no depictions of furries on television have ever gotten it right.

"I'm not even sure that two people in fursuits can have actual sex with each other. It would be like wrapping yourself up in a roll of carpet and trying to have sex with a mattress."

Those that do enjoy their suits for private activities are conscious of what goes on in public versus private.

"I keep a professional separation between public and private life. If I'm doing a public appearance, I've got the sexual drive switched off. When I get home, it's another story. I think some people are eager to cast judgment since they don't see the separation. But do you pleasure your boyfriend and kiss your mother with the same mouth?" Ngo said.

"It's all about the context," he added. "And hygiene."