Of all the critters that may find their way into the refrigerated section of a grocery store… in Chicago no less.
This video is absolutely taking the internet by storm right now. Apparently Barstool personality Eddie Farrer was in the right place at the right time to witness pandemonium break loose at an Aldi in Humboldt Park just a few hours ago.
Police had been called in due to some nuisance animal at the store, which is never a good thing but hey, if you’re a hungry raccoon out in the cold, the bright aisles filled with exclusively edible material looks pretty dang good compared to rummaging through the dirt, so it’s bound to happen.
But it wasn’t a raccoon that was pulled from the cooler. It wasn’t a squirrel, opossum, rabbit, mouse, or any other rodent or rodent like creature that you could imagine.
It was a coyote…
A Coyote In The Cooler
Excuse me, what? I understand that coyotes are a problem and have heard Joe Rogan wax poetically about the rampant spread of these carnivorous canines but this is the first I’ve ever seen something like this.
Was it just running the streets and dashed through the front doors? Maybe hopped in an open loading dock and beelined to the cheese section? Regardless, it’s really shocking to see that cop pull a terrified (read: super dangerous) wild predator from a refrigerator while a crowd of people watch through the window.
Honestly, shoutout to that cop. Armed with nothing more than some gloves and a Swiffer, he grabs the coyotes tail like it was a simple garter snake or bug that had to be squashed, not a potentially rabid wild dog that could inflict a ton of damage.
Now that I think of it, where’s animal control? Why is a cop in Chicago, a place that really needs their cops to be on the ready, taking action on wild animal calls? Things I just don’t understand…
Coyote Populations Explode Across America
According to National Geographic, coyotes have expanded their US range to all of the lower 48 states and Alaska, a feat that shows just how adaptable and tenacious these canines are. Despite at least 400,000 being killed by hunters and state sponsored eradicators annually, their population just about everywhere continues to grow. It’s extremely hard to get an accurate population count, but UC Ranch Properties cites experts that put the range at 2.89 to 4.7 million currently living in the United States.
Human-coyote interactions are on the rise as coyotes push their way into increasingly urban environments (this video being proof that no place is off limits). Just recently we’ve seen one chase a young girl through an Oregon backyard and Tommy Lee’s wife chase one down that had snatched her dog.
Doing something about this problem is an issue in itself. Dan Flores’ book Coyote America claims that when you shoot a coyote its pack knows so when it doesn’t answer roll call that evening. When the females realize that members of their pack are going missing, they begin producing more pups to account for this loss, which is beyond an incredible adaptation of nature but also extremely frustrating for ranchers, landowners, and now even urban dwellers as they attempt to quell the growing numbers.
I have no ideas on how to stop coyotes from getting closer and closer to your homes, so just keep your eyes peeled out there and stay on alert.
Even when you’re picking groceries off the shelf, I guess…
https://t.co/5XeuxYjhfC pic.twitter.com/ZDfpqxMFuI
— B.J. DeGroot (@BJ_DeGroot) January 13, 2025
