The certification is a validation that the forest preserve district is providing an appropriate home and care for its ambassador animals, officials said. Some animal rights activists disagree.

On Monday morning, Chicago Animal Care and Control responded to a report of a coyote at the Humboldt Park Aldi store.

The bill would ban the practice of holding wildlife contests that reward participants with cash, prizes or inducements for killing fur-bearing animals. Much of the floor debate centered on contests that award the killing of coyotes as a method of population control.

The coyote’s new home is 10 times larger than his old one, but animal rights activists still want Rocky transferred to an animal sanctuary.

It will be up to the next mayor to decide how to respond to Chicagoans’ growing frustration with these mega-events.

Over the course of 23 years, the Cook County Coyote Project has tracked the movements of nearly 1,500 coyotes. 

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, animal rights advocates are asking the Cook County Forest Preserve District to have a heart and release “Rocky” the coyote.

Late winter is coyote mating season, which reaches its peak toward the end of February. That's leading to more sightings than usual by humans — even in downtown Chicago — as the animals are a bit bolder and on the move in their search for a soulmate.

Complaints from animal rights advocates regarding the coyote, dubbed “Rocky,” prompted the forest preserve to review its ambassador animal program. A report was released Tuesday, outlining changes to the program, including a bigger enclosure for the coyote.

It's getting to be the time of year when young coyotes strike out from home in search of a mate and a territory to call their own. 

The coyote, confirmed to have bitten a young boy, won’t be released back into the wild but will be placed in an educational setting to raise awareness of the need for peaceful coexistence.

Animal control officials in Chicago said Sunday that DNA tests confirm a coyote recently captured in the city is the same animal that attacked a 6-year-old boy. 

DNA tests to determine if a coyote captured on Chicago’s North Side is the same animal that attacked a 6-year-old boy will take weeks to complete, a city animal control official said Friday.

Authorities on the hunt for coyotes in downtown Chicago after two reported attacks, including one where passersby said they had to pull a wild canine off of a 6-year-old boy who was bitten in the head, captured one animal Thursday night on the city’s North Side.

The city is on high alert after two coyote attacks Wednesday, but a wildlife expert says such incidents are very rare. “I don’t think people need to be panicked or alarmed,” said Seth Magle, director of the Urban Wildlife Institute at Lincoln Park Zoo.

The coyote population in the area has about doubled since 2005, according to research by Stanley Gehrt, who’s been studying coyotes for nearly 20 years.