Stories by Patty Wetli

Chicago’s beaches are opening Friday, marking the unofficial start to summer.

Cook County Forest Preserves is on a mission to restore 30,000 acres of habitat to high-quality condition by the year 2030. There’s just one tiny little problem: a lack of native seed.

Chicago's piping plover pair, Imani and Sea Rocket, are officially expecting.

We asked experts what to do when you see something in the Chicago River that doesn’t belong there.

Chicago is cleaning up Friday after powerful thunderstorms tore through the city Thursday evening, bringing down hundreds of trees, leaving some without power, and even delaying the most highly anticipated concert event of the year.

The National Weather Service is warning of a threat for “significant severe weather” Thursday afternoon into the evening. Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour kicks off a three-night stand at Soldier Field Thursday night.

Ever since it opened in 2023, the Chicago Park District’s new 17-acre headquarters in Brighton Park has been known as Park 596.

The Chicago Park District is undertaking an inventory of its trees — counting their numbers and recording their health — in order to develop a management plan.

A 3.3 magnitude earthquake struck Illinois shortly before midnight Monday, with an epicenter roughly 75 miles southeast of Springfield.

As part of its commitment to conserve the endangered southern California sea otter, Shedd Aquarium is a partner in a groundbreaking surrogate mom program.

Officials are asking for help identifying the body of a person pulled from Lake Michigan along the Indiana Dunes shore over the weekend.

Sea Rocket, who mated with Imani in 2024, has landed at Montrose Beach. Blaze and Pepper, who raised three chicks last summer, are also back on a Waukegan beach.

Chicago was once a swamp. In some places, it still is. But will climate change undo wetland restoration efforts?

The community science program Plants of Concern is designed to keep Illinois’ rare plants from going extinct.

Bits and pieces of Halley’s Comet, which last swung by Earth in 1986, will be visible as meteors in upcoming days. The Aquarid meteor shower will peak in the pre-dawn hours of May 5 and 6.

Chicago Vocational High School led Landmarks Illinois’ annual list of the state’s most endangered historic places.

A proposed change to the United States’ Endangered Species Act could threaten not only to reverse decades of progress but accelerate the pace of loss, experts said.

The latest tactic in Chicago's ongoing war against rats is to attack the problem at the source — with birth control instead of poison.

The Forest Preserve District of Cook County has mapped the largest specimen of each tree species identified in the preserves and has made it easier for people to find these “champions.”

Double-crested cormorants have been thrilling Chicagoans lucky enough to witness thousands of the birds streaming along the Lake Michigan shoreline — wave after wave, lasting for several minutes — as they migrate further north.

The City Nature Challenge is a friendly global competition designed to showcase the biodiversity in urban yards, parks and nature preserves.

Monarchs left Mexico in late March and have now crossed into Illinois, according to reports.

The visitor center reopened Monday after closing for repairs in November 2023 following damage from a fire.

The first meteor shower of the year is here, with the Lyrids peaking late tonight into the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday.

The Chicago Park District said the best viewing will likely run through April 27.

Imani hatched at Montrose Beach in 2021. He has faithfully returned every year since, and last year he finally made a love connection.