Animals & Nature
Shedd Aquarium’s 6-month-old baby beluga is hitting key development milestones, and now it needs a name.
Wildlife professionals and advocates are grappling with an avian influenza outbreak that seems to be growing more virulent among Chicago's wild birds.
Three new species of king cobras have recently been identified, and the Field Museum’s collection has been harboring one of the rarest for nearly 80 years.
A Chilean flamingo died Jan. 8 and a harbor seal died Jan. 9, with testing confirming highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) as the cause, Lincoln Park Zoo officials said.
Allie, one of Brookfield Zoo’s bottlenose dolphins, is expecting a calf in late spring/early summer.
The certification is a validation that the forest preserve district is providing an appropriate home and care for its ambassador animals, officials said. Some animal rights activists disagree.
On Monday morning, Chicago Animal Care and Control responded to a report of a coyote at the Humboldt Park Aldi store.
More than 3,000 bald eagles make their home in Illinois during the coldest months of the year, the largest population of wintering bald eagles in the continental U.S., according to state wildlife officials.
Buddy the cat had previously avoided capture from concerned residents for months. He was eventually captured and taken in by PAWS Chicago on Dec. 23.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
Stink bugs — officially, brown marmorated stink bugs — aren’t fans of the cooler fall temperatures and have started heading indoors to over-winter. Don’t freak out, experts said.
The planting of a non-native milkweed and the practice of captive-rearing monarch caterpillars have been identified as two possible sources of monarchs failure to survive their fall migration.