"A healthy coyote will never become a scavenger. A healthy coyote prefers to hunt live prey," he said.
But, because the coyote captured had a limp, Hopkins believes it’s ability to hunt was compromised, leading it to resort to garbage-picking.
"Once a coyote can’t hunt anymore, that puts a lot of stress on the animal and it changes their behavior and we think that’s what led this coyote down the path to becoming a dangerous threat to human beings," Hopkins said, who was the original sponsor of the city's coyote ordinance which passed in 2015.
He said there’s a large, healthy coyote population in the city and that coyotes coexist with people just fine in Chicago.
"We have over 60 coyotes with radio collars that we’re tracking within the city limits right now. And that’s just the ones that have radio collars. There’s hundreds more that don’t," he said.
Ald. Hopkins said coyotes are beneficial to Chicago. He said they help put a dent in the rat population and find Canada goose eggs to be a delicacy, helping to keep down the Canada goose population, as well.