Environment
You've Heard of Urban Coyotes. Urban Bears Could Be Next
Seriously. Carnivores are coming to your city, and they know how to cross the street.
In the 12 years that Stan Gehrt has been tracking a population of coyotes on the Northwest side of Chicago, living not far from O’Hare International Airport, he has watched them adapt to the city in some pretty stunning ways. For one thing, they understand traffic patterns – in fact, better than some people do.
As best as Gehrt and other researchers can tell, these coyotes have learned what cars are and can understand which direction traffic flows. Coyotes crossing a one-way street know that they need to look in only one direction. They've even embraced medians. Coyotes crossing large roads in the city are prone to dash across one direction of traffic and sit waiting on the island in the middle for the other lanes to clear.