Wild Things 2025

The Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis proposes that randomly determined disturbance events of medium frequency and intensity often result in maximum biodiversity on the landscape scale. Biodiversity and ecosystem stability can be influenced by ecological trajectories such as succession and retrogression, where ecological disturbances shape plant community composition and structure, as well as wildlife habitat.  In northern Illinois, case studies can be observed at well-developed restoration projects such as The Nature Conservancy’s Nachusa Grasslands where bison have been introduced as a keystone species. By utilizing applied science based on principles of the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis, a better understanding of effective stewardship protocols using adaptive management can be developed and adopted across the region.

Our inboxes and channels are flooded with awareness-raising messages to protect our natural world. However, this type of outreach does little to actually change our individual behavior. In this interactive session, participants will learn the fundamentals of behavior change strategies and will identify a conservation behavior to target.

The gROWing Chicago Habitat initiative is a working group based out of the University of Illinois Chicago that engages energy and transportation organizations, conservation groups, public and private landowners, and other stakeholders in creating pollinator habitat in the Chicago Wilderness Region on rights-of-way (ROW). This presentation will explain the potential of rights-of-way to serve as habitat and connect ecosystems for species that rely on early successional grassland habitats. Additionally, this presentation will discuss a prioritization tool that uses geospatial software to focus habitat creation in areas that are biodiversity hotspots, can address environmental injustices, and can increase habitat connectivity.

The creeks and streams of the Forest Preserves of Cook County are of great value and provide unique habitat for the local flora and fauna, as well as playing a major role in the local ecosystems. Unfortunately, we are void of much data on these sites. The information gained can be most helpful in directing restoration efforts, as well as providing baseline information on these great systems.

Project Coyote is a lead proponent of legislation to ban wildlife killing contests in Illinois. The House passed this legislation in the 103rd General Assembly, but time ran out in the Senate. It will be reintroduced in the 104th General Assembly, starting in the Senate. Just as it is hard to believe wildlife killing contests are conducted in Illinois in the modern day, equally disturbing were perspectives voiced about the state’s predators in legislative debate. On display was a pitiful and painful lack of thirst for and familiarity with the science. The IDNR did not contest the bill. The agency has long held that indiscriminate killing is not predator control. Decades of research show that predator populations are self-regulating. All the killing accomplishes is to disrupt self-regulation. Thus, it makes the killing a self-fulfilling prophecy. Behaviors that humans consider problematic occur when humans continually disrupt the animals’ self-regulation. The session will explore how we move beyond predator fear to a day of a better understanding of predator/carnivore ecology reflected in science-based policy.

David Parson, MS, Carnivore Conservation Biologist, USFWS retired, Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Coordinator 1990-1999, will co-present this session.

1/4th of North America’s nocturnal migrating birds move north through the CW Region in the spring; then go back south in the fall in even larger numbers (including birds born that summer). This twice a year transect makes the CW a critical corridor! And the numbers don’t lie: Many species are experiencing significant population declines! Can CW’s landscape, both managed natural lands and human spaces, be made safer and more ‘user-friendly’ for stopover migrants and breeding species alike? The answer – an emphatic yes! Doable actions to lower the Region’s human source mortality risks, plus adjustments to land management practices – will do that, even amidst the growing impact of climate change.

The results of 48 years of experience will be presented regarding the recovery of degraded remnants of prairie and oak savanna, and restoration by inter-seeding into old fields, pastures, and Conservation Reserve Program cool-season grass fields in southern WI. The effects of frequent fire, keystone allelopathic and semi-parasitic plants, and specialist insects will be presented.