Like many immigrant groups, canids began moving into Chicago quietly. Seeking a place to live undisturbed, isolated individuals promptly blended in, sheltering in crannies, gleaning a livelihood by filling roles others wouldn’t. The rest of the city took notice only when a troublemaker appeared.
Bob Long, who runs fishing programs for the Park District, has seen coyotes and foxes in surprising places on the south side. “As fishermen, we happen to be in places at times where others aren’t going to be, clambering around in the rocks on the lakefront at 4 AM,” he says. “We find bones that look like they’ve been eaten by something, chewed up more than a bird of prey is going to do. Areas cleared of squirrels and rabbits, and the only reason is because a predator has been around. I’ve seen coyotes running along the rocks between 47th Street and 39th.” Two years ago he saw a large coyote and two smaller ones in Jackson Park. “They were just running around smelling things. At first I thought they were small German shepherds, but they were low-slung. Definitely coyotes. They were just wandering around, very casual–at a good clip but not running particularly fast. They seemed very comfortable.”
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Gehrt is also studying the “mesopredator effect” of coyotes–the impact they have on midsize predators halfway up the food chain, on the hunters that are also hunted. In an urban context mesopredators include alley animals such as raccoons, skunks, and domestic and feral cats–omnivorous scavengers that multiply on a trash-can diet but still patrol parks for the more traditional fare they find in bird nests. Coyotes eat mesopredators, outcompete them for food, and scare them into more cautious behavior that makes them less effective hunters. With fewer raccoons and cats around to eat their eggs and chicks, songbirds in coyote territories often show dramatic increases in nesting success.
Gehrt’s mesopredator effect seems to be occurring between different canid species. Five years ago a pair of coyotes began leaping into the cemetery from the bordering IC tracks. They haven’t stayed in the cemetery, but they keep visiting. “The foxes used to range the whole cemetery,” says Remarcik. “Now they don’t go far. They stay in the most desolate, least visited part,” an older area of the cemetery with few recent graves.
