Stories by Patty Wetli

The preservation community is coming around to considering the 1970s and 1980s to be historic, ushering in a new wave of buildings up for landmark consideration.

Remember the pair of mountain lions (aka cougars, aka pumas, aka panthers) that wandered into Illinois last fall? Scientists say folks east of the Mississippi should expect more of such sightings.

January and February are prime months for bald eagle watching in Illinois, with some 3,000 of the raptors hanging out in the state during the winter.

Supporters of Promontory Point can breathe a sigh of relief that the peninsula's much loved stair-step limestone wall is poised, finally, to become protected from attempts to replace it with concrete.

The road to city landmark status for Promontory Point starts at Thursday’s meeting of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. Supporters have been fighting to protect the lakefront peninsula for more than 20 years.

Wastewater sampling has been a key early-warning tool for detecting spikes in the spread of COVID-19, and now Illinois is making its data available to the public through an interactive online dashboard.

Lincoln Park Zoo announced it welcomed not one, not two, but three lion cubs on Monday. The zoo had been on lion watch since early December, when staff confirmed 4-year-old African lion Zari was pregnant.

The six recommended appointees to the board, which was created in June 2021, all received unanimous support during a key committee hearing. Next up is a full Chicago City Council vote.

"Despite promising signs of recovery the first 48 hours, the bird took a very rapid turn for the worst," Willowbrook Wildlife Center shared on social media.

A GPS collar allowed researchers to track the wolf from Michigan all the way to Manitoba, Canada. That's just one of the wild stories we followed this week.

Live trees — well, not so live anymore — can be recycled at any one of 26 citywide locations, Jan. 7-21.

Rescuing a bald eagle floating on ice in open water raises the stakes exponentially, but volunteers with Chicago Bird Collision Monitors proved up to the task with a New Year's Day recovery effort.

We checked in with the experts at Streets and Sanitation, and here's what's accepted in the city's blue recycling carts and what isn't.

There's still plenty of holiday merriment to be made through the New Year. 

Enjoy a cosmic Christmas, with all five naked-eye planets visible in the sky. The moon, Mercury and Venus will form a sparkling triangle on Christmas Eve. 

From industrious sharks to the bird of the year, here’s what caught our attention this week on the climate and nature beat.

The snow total from Thursday was a mere 1.3 inches at O'Hare (though northwest Indiana and lower Michigan have been hammered with lake effect), but the real danger of this system was always the wind and cold, meteorologists said.

Classes are not canceled Thursday, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez announced. Chicago is expecting to get hit with a dangerous combination of high winds, extremely cold temperatures and blowing snow, creating whiteout conditions.

The fund will award grants in amounts ranging from $50,000 to $250,000 for projects, including energy efficiency upgrades, green infrastructure or the purchase of electric vehicles.

What will be the hallmark of the impending Christmas blizzard of 2022? Probably not a lot of snow, but that’s not what blizzards are about anyway.

The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture leases a historic landmark building in Humboldt Park. It began construction on an adjacent archive facility without obtaining permits.

Lake County Forest Preserves has now joined a global wildlife tracking network, expanding the ability of researchers to follow the movement of migratory birds through the Chicago region.

Chicago has launched a contest to name six of its snowplows — one for each snow district — and the competition promises to be fierce.

From a mass die-off of trees to a moose on the loose, here’s what caught our attention this week on the climate and nature beat.

The Chicago Park District announced a number of new benefits designed to help with recruitment and retention at the December meeting of the district’s board of commissioners.

The candidates include well-known banes like garlic mustard and wild parsnip, but also a plant adored by landscapers and property owners: the Callery pear tree.