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In Chicago urban coyotes have urban dwellers anxious

  When I lived in the desert I saw coyotes every now and then. And of course on an off I would hear the coyotes howling. I suspect they knew where I was sleeping but they never bothered me. Several times they were withing 30 feet of me or 10 meters but they never acted agressive. In fact I am scared of them and when they get too close I will yell at them and throw rocks.


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Urban coyotes have urban dwellers anxious

By Andy Grimm, Tribune reporter

9:22 p.m. CST, January 30, 2011

Mark another neighborhood as part of the expanding frontier of the urban coyote: Residents in the Northwest Side's Budlong Woods area recently have reported multiple sightings of at least one scrawny coyote, and what sounds like a chorus of coyotes howling in response to ambulance sirens at nearby Swedish Covenant Hospital.

Like everywhere else the coyote has appeared, its arrival in Budlong Woods has been greeted with fear and wonder, as longtime urban dwellers must deal with the presence of a species that had all but vanished from the Chicago area by the end of the 19th century.

Longtime resident Gail Rosen recently heard from a neighbor that coyotes were wandering the neighborhood. She immediately began shadowing her 6-pound Yorkie on even short trips outside her house in the 2800 block of West Rascher Avenue.

"She'd just be a morsel for a coyote," Rosen said.

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Across the street, her neighbors' 7-year-old son is setting out bologna slices for the neighborhood's new predators.

Another neighbor was wary but not too worked up.

"I don't think it's a problem, but there's a lot of kids playing outside, especially with the snow," said Jim Roumbos, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years and spotted his first coyote romping in a neighbor's yard Sunday.

Roumbos said 311 operators have told him the city does not trap coyotes, but he said he isn't too concerned.

"I don't want (coyotes) out looking for food," he said. "A kid might be out, holding a sandwich, and get attacked."

Chicagoans would seem to have little to fear, said Ohio State University researcher Stan Gehrt, who has led a decadelong study of the coyotes' incursion into the Chicago area.

Once symbols of the untamed American West, coyotes are now thriving in cities across the nation. But the animals' secretive nature makes sightings rare. Of course, Chicago's coyotes have had their share of publicity.

In 2007, a 2-year-old male wandered into a Loop Quizno's at lunchtime and chilled inside a soft drink cooler until authorities hauled him out and relocated him to the suburbs. In November, a cameraman videoed a coyote sprinting down State Street. A month later, city firefighters rescued a female coyote trapped on ice in Lake Michigan that had drifted into the open water off Fullerton Avenue.

It's unclear why coyotes are spreading out, but no one disputes that they've been successful in cities. Gehrt said there is virtually no part of Chicago that coyotes don't traverse on a daily basis.

Gehrt's conservative estimate is that there are some 2,000 coyotes in and around the city, and most of them enjoy longer life spans than coyotes studied in rural areas.

"We have located them in Grant Park … in Lincoln Park, in the dog parks," Gehrt said. "People are probably walking within a few feet of them and not even noticing."

Such peaceful coexistence appears to be the norm, though paradoxically, it requires continued hostility from humans, Gehrt said. Feeding coyotes or otherwise trying to befriend them will eventually make them more bold and dangerous to humans, Gehrt said.

"If you see a coyote, you can educate them. Yell at them. Throw something at them," he said.

There are no reports of coyotes attacking humans in Chicago, and only about 70 documented attacks on pets.

And though there are urban coyotes that roam alone over territories of dozens of miles, the coyotes in Budlong Woods apparently have announced an intent to be residents, or prowling a few miles of turf, Gehrt said.

"If they're howling at the sirens, then they have residents. Solitary ones don't howl," he said.

agrimm@tribune.com

 

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