Researchers hoped to track two coyotes in St. Louis for a year. The animals didn’t make it.

ST. LOUIS — Silver was a cagey drifter with a beautiful rack of teeth and the worst case of mange around. He liked to hide out in a brushy, dank drainage canal in University City.

Solar was a fluffy new mother of five with a taste for the finer things. She frequented Hampton Park in Richmond Heights, one of the oldest, most exclusive “private” subdivisions in the St. Louis region.

Both were coyotes caught last spring in Forest Park and released there with fancy tracking collars. As scientists explained then in an extensive Post-Dispatch report, they wanted to better understand where the coyotes go and how they live among us.

They also wanted to see what the animals could teach us about ourselves.

Tracking data was supposed to be collected for one year, but the GPS collars alerted early that the coyotes were dead. The study, with a sample size of just two, has shifted to include necropsies, or animal autopsies.

On June 27, scientists recovered Silver’s remains hours after his death. He lay under a tree, along a brushy stretch of the River Des Peres threaded between a residential area, Heman Park and the entrance to a huge, dark concrete tunnel under University City. Though his mange had improved, heartworm, a mosquito-borne disease, killed him, said Sharon Deem, director of the St. Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine.

“Externally, he looked better, whereas his poor heart internally was fighting off heartworm,” said Deem, one of several scientists involved in the Forest Park Living Lab, which follows the whereabouts of 16 species, from red-tailed hawks to box turtles. 

As it turned out, Silver didn’t return to Forest Park much since he was collared and released there in March. He covered extensive ground yet was mainly hemmed in by major highways. Data relayed from his collar show that he zigzagged from Webster Groves to Overland to the far eastern edge of the McKinley Bridge over the Mississippi River.

Other than being front-page news when he was caught and released, Silver kept a low profile. Scientists didn’t hear much about him from the public.

He often returned from his jaunts to the lush area where he was found dead. Even though the grease pit behind a nearby restaurant seemed particularly enticing, a cashier there said she’d never seen him. Nor had several residents, including Mark Harvey.

Out for a walk in the area Silver stayed, Harvey reminisced about the coyotes he used to live near in the Mississippi Delta.

“They took care of the rat problem,” he said. “They were wonderful. I was glad to have them.”

While Silver blended in, Solar caused a stir. Or, as Deem described it, Solar “had evidence of human impact.”

On Aug. 14, scientists recovered her remains several hours after her death. She lay in a Hampton Park backyard, near a smattering of big, tree-filled lots and mansions built in the styles of Tudor and Colonial Revival, French and Italian Renaissance. Signs staked to the opulent entrance to the neighborhood off Clayton Road warn that the area is under video surveillance and “trespassers will be prosecuted.”

Solar seemed to pass through the gates and walls with ease by utilizing a stone-lined rivulet and other nearby drainage. But she chose to den in a tight, hilly, brushy spot, just past the southern edge of Hampton Park, between Highway 40 (Interstate 64) and the foot of Bennett Avenue, home of a historic Black community where Arthur Ashe honed his legendary tennis skills when he was still in high school.

On April 11, Solar gave birth to five pups, three days after she was collared and released. Tracking data show that Solar often went to Forest Park at night but always returned to her den, which was isolated yet near the roar of highway traffic and the bucolic enclave that is Hampton Park.

The pups could be heard howling at sirens passing by on the highway.

“They looked like they turned into teenagers really quick,” said a Hampton Park resident who said she didn’t want to be named.

She said Solar and her pups were seen in the neighborhood day and night. She said a neighborhood email circled that included concerns and fears that the coyotes could harm them or their dogs. At one point, she said, somebody mentioned the possibility of shooting a coyote.

“We haven’t seen one in over a month,” she said, unaware of Solar’s death.

A necropsy done at the zoo found that Solar had been shot twice, once in the elbow with a pellet and another in the face, likely with a .22 caliber bullet. But those were old wounds that had healed.

The pathologist believes Solar was killed by blunt-force trauma. Somebody likely struck Solar with a narrow instrument, such as a rod, bat or broom handle, at the ribs and then again with what may be the flat side of the rod or a kick to the abdomen.

Deem said neighbors were cooperative when Living Lab scientists came to retrieve the dead animal. She said it’s unclear where the beating took place or where Solar had previously been shot.

“I would love to take a look at the surveillance video,” she said of the neighborhood.

No one interviewed for this story in Hampton Park would provide their names, nor would they provide contact information for neighborhood trustees. Neighborhood trustees didn’t respond to secondhand requests for comment.

While Hampton Park owns its streets, Richmond Heights said it patrols the area and helps maintain streets during the winter months. Despite signage, city officials said the public is allowed inside Hampton Park. They referred inquiries about the neighborhood trustees to the public works department, which wouldn’t say who they deal with at Hampton Park.

Richmond Heights officials did clarify that hunting is not allowed in the city limits and that coyotes have been there a long time.

While some Hampton Park neighbors were supportive of the Living Lab effort, the lab did get complaints about coyotes potentially harming people or pets, Deem said. One neighbor reported a coyote attack on a large dog, but there was no mention in the complaint of any specific injuries to the dog. The claim has not been corroborated by the Living Lab team.

Deem was saddened but not surprised by the early end to Silver and Solar, the first coyotes trapped in Forest Park that the Living Lab tracked.

“Every time we have a mortality, it hits us,” Deem said. “We want to learn about these animals to help conserve biodiversity. As we become more urbanized, we know this human-wildlife interface is real and alive.”

Solar and Silver were able to give a glimpse of that, even though the time parameters of the tracking data had to be shortened. And their deaths show what coyotes are up against in the St. Louis region.

“Part of our study is understanding where we are today in this world of shifting baselines of wildlife species right here in our neighborhoods, in our country,” Deem said. “That is something we can all do. Communities can do that. We don’t have to go to Africa or South America to think about carnivore conservation — we can do it right here.”

Surveillance footage signals that coyotes are going all over. In 2025, the Living Lab intends to catch, collar and release more of them in Forest Park. Wildlife experts say that coyote attacks on people are very rare.

“Whether we put a collar on it or not, urban wildlife is here,” said Deem. “We, as folks living within this area, should understand how to live with urban wildlife.”