60 Wild Coyotes Patrol Chicago (And Occasionally Stop At Convenience Stores)

This is a coyote "patrolling" the streets (and not just any street, this is State Street!) in downtown Chicago. It's supposed to be there, say the police. And it's not alone.

Here is a video report:

 
Chicago's Cook County now has over 60 coyotes fitted with radio collars (plus a good many uncollared ones) roaming parks, alleys, yards and thoroughfares in one of the biggest cities in America. The animals earn their keep eating small rodents, especially rats and voles. The Cook County, Illinois, Coyote Project calls itself "the largest urban study of coyotes in the world." Their first animal, called "Big Mama" was caught in 2000. "She was a young, transient coyote that was not a member of a group," says Dr. Stan Gehrt of Ohio State who directs the project. By 2002, she had settled down with an uncollared male friend (called, less warmly, "Number 115"), in a heavily-developed area a few miles from O'Hare International Airport. Together Mama and 115 have had at least six litters, producing 45 babies, and those babies now have babies. Big Mama's large family seems to live very discreetly in Chicago. People hardly ever see them...more