It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WBEEZ.

Hey, Ira Flato here, host of the public radio program Science Friday. Yes, I know you're probably used to hearing me on my weekly show about curious science topics.

But I'm here because we actually teamed up with Curious City to answer a question about coyotes here in Chicago.

It was part of our live show at the Harris Theater, and we're going to share my interview with Chris

Anker. He's a biologist with the Urban Coyote Project. His team actually tracks the coyote

population here in Chicago, and they've learned all kinds of stuff about how the coyotes

behave. But before I spoke with Chris Anchor, I sat down with Curious City editor,

Alexandra Salomon, and Devin Henderson. He's the one that asked the question. Here's Devin.

So I was going down Lakeshore Drive one day in a cab. It was one morning about a year ago.

And I saw the side of the window. What I first thought was a dog walking down one of the roads along Lake Shore

and then I realized this was a coyote

so like any good, you know, outstanding Chicago citizen

I pulled out my phone and thought, you know, I'll look up animal control about this

and on their website they basically said, don't call us about coyotes unless, right?

Don't call us about coyotes unless there's a problem.

Wait, wait a minute, wait a minute.

So seeing a coyote in Chicago is not considered a problem.

Exactly.

That's what I was surprised to learn because I thought it would be.

So then I submitted a question to Curie City asking about Chicago actually tracks and kind of protects their coyote population.

So I was asking about why Chicago does that and details about

that program.

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