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Urban Coyotes Selected Forested Den Sites and Avoided Developed Areas Around Chicago

Wild coyote standing among trees in a forest
Research · Ecology

Coyotes (Canis latrans) in suburban parts of the Chicago metropolitan area selected forested den sites and avoided more heavily developed locations. The study, available online on 3 March 2026 in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, examined den-site selection in a city region with an extensive network of forest preserves.

The researchers analysed 44 natal dens used between 2002 and 2016 and compared them with available locations within the coyotes’ accessible pre-denning areas. Habitat was measured both within 30 m of each den and across a wider 200-m radius.

Dens Had More Forest and Less Developed Land Around Them

Used den sites had more forest and less developed land than available sites. Selection for forest appeared at both spatial scales, but models based on the 200-m patches were better at predicting den use. The result indicates that the coyotes selected forested surroundings across a broader patch rather than responding only to vegetation immediately beside the den.

Other Land-Cover Types Did Not Explain Den Choice

The researchers found no comparable effect of wetlands, open natural land or agriculture. Forest selection also did not change clearly with the amount of surrounding development or with the den’s position within the coyote’s pre-denning home range.

The result contrasts with studies from some other cities where coyotes have denned close to human structures. The authors point to Chicago’s extensive network of protected forest preserves as a possible reason coyotes there can select forested sites while avoiding developed land.

Because human-coyote encounters can increase around dens during pup rearing, the authors suggest that urban forest could help separate denning coyotes from intensive human activity. They stress, however, that whether greater forest cover actually causes lower conflict rates must be tested directly by combining den locations, human activity and conflict records across cities with different amounts of forest.

Sources and image credit

  1. Meliane, M. K., Prieur, A.-G. A., Gehrt, S. D., & Ellington, E. H. (2026). Coyote denning behavior in urban environments: An argument for more forests in cities. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 119, 129388. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2026.129388Primary peer-reviewed open-access study available online 3 March 2026. It compared 44 natal coyote dens with 1,135 available locations in suburban Chicago and found selection for forest and avoidance of developed land, with 200-m patch models outperforming 30-m local models.

Image: Christopher Bruno — wild coyote standing in forest vegetation, photographed 18 May 2003; Wikimedia Commons; representative forest image, not an animal from the Chicago study · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source

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