How do coyotes live in a big city? Scientists in Cook County, Illinois, are finding out. As of November 2026, the Urban Coyote Research Project in Cook County, Illinois, is based on more than 20 years of research by Dr. Stanley D. Gehrt and his team. As of the same month, the project estimates that 1,500 to 2,000 coyotes may live in Cook County.

Scientists put GPS collars on coyotes to see where they go. In the Cook County project, researcher Paul Morey examined 1,429 scats, which are droppings, to learn what coyotes eat.

In a study of Cook County, Illinois, small rodents were the main food of city coyotes. Ninety percent of a coyote's diet is mammals. City coyotes sometimes eat food that people leave out, such as trash.

Not every coyote in the study lived with others. Between one-third and one-half of the coyotes studied each year were solitary. Solitary coyotes travel over large areas, up to 60 square miles, covering many municipalities. Their home ranges average 10 square miles (26.8 square kilometers).

Coyotes often live in pairs or in family groups, and they are less likely to form packs than wolves are. Coyote mates may stay paired for a number of years, but not necessarily for life.

In natural areas, coyotes tend to be active in the day or at dawn and dusk, but in Chicago they confine most activity to the night. A separate study of 62 species found that mammals were 1.36 times as nocturnal when people were nearby. Eighty-three percent of the case studies in that analysis showed some increase in night activity when people were around.

In the Chicago area coyotes generally have a 60 percent chance of surviving one year. Juvenile coyote survival in Cook County is about five times higher than the 13 percent reported for rural juveniles.

A study published in 2024 used tracking data from 214 coyotes in the Chicago area between 2013 and 2021. The aim was to see what affects how long city coyotes live. It found a positive link between coyote survival and human population density.

Coyotes began spreading across North America around 1920, and they crossed the Panama Canal in 2010, moving into Central America. Scientists reviewed more than 12,500 records covering 10,000 years to map how coyotes spread across North and Central America.

Scientists call coyotes very adaptable animals. Coyotes have adapted well to places that people have changed. Biologist Stan Gehrt says coyotes that were born and raised in urban areas prefer urban areas.

Words to know

• solitary: living alone
• scats: animal droppings
• nocturnal: active at night
• collars: neck bands