Winter 2001

By Chris Hardman

The North American coyote has long been a symbol of the wilderness. Snout pointed toward the evening sky with a full moon at his back, the coyote reminds us of what is truly wild in this country. Or does it? These days, the coyote can be found anywhere in Chicago Wilderness — from the bustling streets of Chicago to cultivated suburban neighborhoods to the natural wilds.

Coyotes' sharp teeth are a threat to cats and small dogs, but these predators are helping restore balance in our wildlands. Photo by Lynn M. Stone.

Coyotes were roaming Chicago Wilderness forests and prairies long before Europeans immigrated here in the 1800s. Journals kept by early explorers indicate that coyotes were abundant in Illinois in the 1800s but their populations declined dramatically in the latter part of the century. It wasn’t until almost 100 years later that their numbers increased, starting in west-central Illinois in the early 1970s and moving to the northeastern part of the state in the late 1970s and early 1980s. According to Mammals of Illinois, written by Donald F. Hoffmeister, there were between 20,000 and 30,000 coyotes living in Illinois by the mid-1980s.

The key to the coyote's survival is the animal's amazingly adaptable personality. The coyote can live in the most remote regions of the country or survive well inside our largest cities. In this region, coyotes are most common in forest preserves with a good mix of grassland and open woods, but they also live in cemeteries, local parks, and even at O'Hare Airport.

Chicago residents were taken by surprise in March of 1999 when the Chicago Tribune publicized the capture of a coyote that was hiding under a taxi on Michigan Avenue. That was no surprise to Chris Anchor, a wildlife biologist with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County charged with capturing and releasing the urban coyote. According to his studies, all coyote habitat in Cook County is occupied and spoken for. The coyotes have been living among us for several decades.

"One of the reasons they have been so successful is that they are rather plastic in their feeding habits, are opportunistic, and take advantage of a wide variety of food sources," says Frank Drummond, a wildlife biologist for the Lake County Forest Preserves. Coyotes can survive on any type of food. Although their preference is rodents, voles, and mice, they can also eat insects, grasshoppers, beetles, grubs, snakes, lizards, and frogs. In cities they hunt rats and house cats, scavenge from garbage cans and dumpsters, and dine on road kill.

Wiley Buck, now working for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, examined for his Master’s thesis what coyotes were eating in the suburbs. Focusing on Cook, Lake, McHenry, Will, and DuPage counties, Buck studied coyote scat to determine suburban coyote diet. "The very interesting thing is that we found very little human-related food: garbage or pets," he says. "In other urban areas like San Diego and Los Angeles, where the diets have been studied, they depend a lot on cats and garbage-picking to make a living, but the ones in Chicago Wilderness are being pretty traditional and eating wild food." The majority of the coyote’s diet was made up of rabbit and deer.

Ironically, widespread development throughout the Chicago Wilderness area has resulted in more food for the coyote. Most forest preserves were a mix of agricultural fields and woodlots before they became conservation land. The mosaic of woods and grasslands that results provides ideal habitat for the small mammals coyotes love to eat. As prey populations have exploded, coyotes have found an abundant and easy food source.

Although the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) reports that the coyote population has been stable since the 1980s, more people throughout the Chicago Wilderness region are reporting more coyote sightings and coyote-human interactions than ever before. IDNR Biologist Bob Bluett suggests that the reason people encounter coyotes more often is not because there are more coyotes, but because the coyotes are allowing themselves to be seen.

"I think what you’re seeing are the effects of evolution of behavior," says Bluett. "When that population increase was going on in the ’70s, you had animals coming into residential areas under dire circumstances only—deep snow, cold temperatures. Over several generations that tendency to be afraid of people and be very elusive has given way ...to animals that just take people for granted."

Chris Anchor points out that coyotes feel quite safe in well-populated areas where hunting is not allowed. "Coyotes, in general, in Cook County are not legally hunted or trapped so they’ve lost a lot of their natural fear of humans," he explains. "In this area coyotes view people neutrally. We get a lot of reports of coyotes hunting in neighborhoods in the middle of the day, walking through picnic groves while picnics are going on right in front of people."

Wildlife biologists are confident that even as coyotes get bolder, by following certain rules, humans can co-exist with coyotes peacefully and enjoy sharing the land with this clever and beautiful animal. The number one rule is to never feed coyotes. "The only documented cases of [coyotes] attacking humans have occurred in areas where people feed them, and they all occurred in people that were age five and younger," says Anchor. "So it’s imperative that people do not begin to feed coyotes."

Feeding coyotes completely breaks down their natural fear of humans and can cause them to become unusually aggressive. Especially in residential neighborhoods with young children, the results of well-intentioned feeding could be tragic. In order to prevent coyotes from viewing humans as a food source at all, experts recommend securing garbage cans so coyotes don’t become regular visitors scavenging for scraps in the back yard. Bringing in dog or cat food and water in the evening also eliminates a potential coyote food source. Although coyotes can pose a threat to small cats and dogs, a simple solution is to keep dogs on leashes and bring cats in at night.

As with any wild animal, the best way to enjoy coyotes is from a distance. As long as humans do not threaten them or their pups, coyotes will be the first to run away during a typical coyote-human encounter. According to IDNR statistics, only 16 cases of coyotes attacking humans have been documented in a 30-year period. "Whenever I’ve handled the animals in the traps, they are very docile and just kind of lie there and let you work on them and put on the collar and take the blood samples," says IDNR Natural Heritage Biologist Brad Semel. "I’d rather work with a coyote than a raccoon."

According to Illinois biologists, the effect coyotes have had on other native wildlife varies from species to species. They note that red foxes have lost territory to coyotes. "The foxes are getting pushed back into different areas. We are getting calls about foxes in subdivisions and under trailers. I think these foxes are trying to find little niches where the coyotes aren’t because where the two of them come into contact, the coyotes are actually killing the foxes," explains Semel. "I had radio collars on two foxes that were killed by coyotes. They don’t eat them. They just seem to eliminate them from the range of competition." The gray fox seems to fare much better because they are able to escape coyotes by climbing trees.

Deer are affected by coyotes in a different way. Adult deer are rarely a source of coyote food in the Chicago Wilderness area. Because Illinois coyotes don’t live in large packs, they are less apt to attempt the takedown of a large mammal like a deer. They do feed on fawns and on road-killed deer. A recent study by John Oldenburg, Manager of Grounds and Natural Resources, and his colleagues at the DuPage County Forest Preserve District shows that newborn fawns are definitely an important food source for coyotes in their area.

Of 129 samples of coyote scat they collected between late March through mid-June of 2000, 21.7 percent contained white-tailed deer. By identifying the size of bone remnants, the researchers were able to determine that the remains belonged to newborn fawns. "What this suggests is that predation probably plays a greater role than we were originally thinking," says Oldenburg. "If we can have any natural predation going on to help us manage deer that would be a great benefit." This new information is now being used in DuPage County’s computer model to help predict deer population and determine harvest numbers.

Coyotes are great communicators. Scientists have identified at least 11 different kinds of vocalizations such as lone howls, group howls, group yipping, and barks. Coyotes use their voices to establish territory, signal a warning, indicate location, and send greetings. Brad Woodson, restoration ecologist for the McHenry County Conservation District, says that campers enjoy hearing coyotes in the evening. "I think that’s a neat thing that adds to the camping experience," he says.

Coyotes also use facial expressions and body positions to communicate with each other. For example, grimaces can indicate aggressive feelings. A complex communication structure is imperative for animals used to living as a community; because coyotes normally live in packs, they need to be able to communicate with each other to avoid fights or misunderstandings. In the Chicago Wilderness area, coyotes live alone, in pairs, or in temporary family groups.

Like other canines, coyotes are very territorial. They mark their territory with urine or scat and warn off any interlopers with aggressive displays. Most territories are already spoken for, which explains the presence of coyotes in the more populated areas. "We did some work with coyotes that came out of city of Chicago," explains Chris Anchor. "We radio-collared them and let them go. Basically what every single coyote tried to do was get back to where they came from. We would take them to the most extreme areas of the county where they had every opportunity to stay away from people if they chose to, and every single animal chose to try and get back to where they came from."

Coyote parents are good parents. Both take responsibility for protecting the pups, feeding them, and teaching them how to be a coyote. During the first week of life, the pups are blind and helpless, and the mother rarely leaves the den. A few weeks later the pups will take their first tentative steps out of the den and begin to explore their surroundings. The next two months are spent learning what to eat, how to howl, and how to spot predators. With the arrival of the fall, the pups usually venture out on their own.

Built into the coyote’s survival strategy is the natural tendency to be suspicious of anything or anyone new. The coyote knows every inch of his territory and will immediately notice a new presence. When young pups are around, a coyote mother can easily be spooked into moving her pups into a new den if she senses something out of place in her territory. Their suspicious nature keeps them out of sight when human visitors arrive, making seeing a coyote a rare treat. Actually more people have seen coyotes than they realize. Because coyotes look so much like domestic dogs — with the coloring and build of a German Shepherd — they have been able to travel through populated areas in a sort of disguise.

Unfortunately, coyotes have a sad history with humans. They are one of the most persecuted animals in North America. In 1931, the U.S. government began a campaign of coyote extermination under a department titled Animal Damage Control (recently the name was changed to Wildlife Services). Each year hundreds of thousands of coyotes are legally killed. Ranchers in the West hold a particularly strong hatred for the coyote, blaming them for the loss of livestock. The canines are labeled problem animals and are trapped, shot, and poisoned.

As more people come into contact with this beautiful and wild animal, perhaps fear will turn into respect. Biologists remind us of the important role coyotes play in the environment. They help to control rodent populations. They keep in balance the numbers of mid-sized predators. Without coyotes, elevated numbers of foxes, raccoons, and opossums actually eliminate many bird species.

"It’s always good when you see them," says Brad Semel, "because you know that there is still part of the real wild Illinois left. It certainly would be nice to see some of other creatures they used to co-habitate with, like the elk and bison, and think about what this place looked like 100 years ago."

Writer Chris Hardman is occasionally awakened by the howls and yips of coyotes on her property.