Stories by Patty Wetli

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Illinois Department of Public Health and Illinois Department of Agriculture issued a joint statement Friday afternoon, reminding the public to use caution around waterfowl or other wild birds.

The Park District could burn roughly 140 acres of natural areas in the 2024-25 season. Controlled burns help knock back invasive species while promoting growth of native plants.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is hosting First Day Hikes at 15 state parks on Jan. 1.

The massive silos — popular with urban explorers and famously featured in “Transformers: Age of Extinction” — date back more than a century but haven’t been used as grain elevators since the 1970s.

After more than a few false IDs and several tantalizing random hints of an otter-like shoulder or tail, one of the zoo’s cameras finally clicked at the right moment and, for the first time in nearly 15 years, caught an otter in full view.

Submissions are due by Jan. 4 or whenever entries hit 20,000, whichever comes first.

Cloud cover and moonlight are likely to spoil meteor watching Friday night, when the annual Geminids shower reaches its peak.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was proposing to list the monarch butterfly as an endangered species. A final decision is expected by the end of the year.

For only the third time in its nearly 100-year history, Shedd Aquarium is unveiling a new exhibit in its grand rotunda. “Wonder of Water” is now open to the public.

The U.S. Senate has approved the reauthorization through 2031 of a federal program that provides crucial funding for restoration and protection of Great Lakes ecosystems. Now it’s up to the U.S. House to do the same.

In a first for the Field Museum, the exhibits staff has outfitted four of its dinosaur replicas (OK, three dinosaurs and one pterosaur) in Santa hats to celebrate the festive season.

On Saturday, Jupiter will shine its brightest of the year and will be visible all night as it travels the sky from sunset to sunrise.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded the first construction contract for the barrier designed to keep invasive carp out of the Great Lakes.

Community volunteers helped Shedd Aquarium researcher Karen Murchie discover an important trigger of sucker fish migration and along the way they've become vital advocates for freshwater animals.

Despite the frigid end to the month, November 2024 was still nearly 5 degrees warmer than normal. In fact, the entire year is on track to become the warmest since recordkeeping began in 1872.

It’s an annual tradition even non-birders have come to enjoy as huge flocks of sandhill cranes head from their northern breeding grounds to their winter home in Florida.

Conditions for a potential winter storm never materialized, which should make for largely pleasant travel conditions this Thanksgiving.

Officials suspect the plant — hydrilla — which is banned in Illinois may have been dumped from an individual's aquarium.

“Failure to thrive” was determined as the official cause of death for three piping plover chicks at Montrose Beach, likely due to a stretch of bad weather that kept the chicks from foraging for food.

The show has been running at Briar Street Theatre in Lakeview since 1997.

Chicago notched 2.7 inches in the first snowfall of the season, according to the National Weather Service.

The last pass of sweepers was originally scheduled for Nov. 22, but the season will now end on Nov. 29.

So far in 2024, the district has acquired 249 acres, the second most in any year since 1984, according to officials with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County.

The Chicago Plan Commission will meet Thursday to discuss approval for quantum computing campus on former South Works steel plant site. 

Of the billions of birds on the planet, a lone osprey with a unique ID band was found in Colombia and linked to Cook County.

Pitchfork announced Monday it had made the “difficult decision” not to host Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago in 2025.