The Wild Things Conference Returns Saturday, March 1, 2025 - SOLD OUT

We’re thrilled to welcome you again to learn and share your expertise with our community. We’ve put together an exciting lineup of workshops and sessions from regional and national experts, plus meet & greets, video content, exhibitors, and sponsors. With over 140 presentations and discussion panels to choose from, the in-person program engages a diverse range of topics, research, and skills, and plenty of opportunities to meet with friends, old and new.

Thank you as well to our sponsors, scholarship supporters, and exhibitors who are all helping to make this another tremendously successful Wild Things.

Tickets for Wild Things 2025 are sold out. For additional information on the 2025 conference, visit wildthingscommunity.org.

**PLEASE NOTE: Some details are subject to change.**

NOTICE: Please be advised that photos and videos will be taken during Wild Things 2025. By attending, you consent to be photographed, filmed, and/or otherwise recorded. Your attendance on this event constitutes your agreement to the use of any resulting media by Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves for promotional, marketing, or any other purpose in perpetuity, without further approval or any compensation.

12:30pm CST

Touching Hearts to Inspire Action: The Art of Bell Bowl Prairie Room 44Jessie Crow Mermel Active Golf Course Turned Nature Preserve: Harnessing the Power of Lumberjacks Rooms 55, 57Megan Hart • Chris Broch Come for the Raptors, Stay for the Message - Strategies in Building Connections in our Communities for Conservation Room 29Nabeel Rasheed • David Felice Community Engagement at Clark Street Beach Bird Sanctuary Room 41Robert Linsenmeier Launching the Illinois Native Plant Conservation Alliance Room 28Brian Charles Expanding and democratizing science through teen-created research projects Rooms 54, 56, 58David Bild Inclusion Strategies for Early Childhood Programs Room 49Sarah Blazer • Kelly Reina • Jill Damato Enhancing the benefits of community gardens for pollinators and people in Chicago Room 45Andrea Flores gROWing Chicago: How Rights-of-Way Can Create and Connect Pollinator Habitat in the Chicago Wilderness Region and Beyond Room 46Catherine O’Reilly Native plant migrations and contemporary range boundaries in relation to ecoregions and climate change Rooms 30, 31Will Overbeck Shifts in timing of spring and fall events over 29 years in an Illinois forest Room 26David Zaya Conserving and restoring the threatened butternut tree (Juglans cinerea, aka white walnut) Room 48Emma Leavens • Gavin Salas • Sean Hoban Restoring ecologically healthy shorelines at Indian Ridge Marsh Room 43Katie Kucera • Harry Kuttner Roll call! Post-invasive cattail management implications for seeding of native species and habitat for waterbirds Room 50Madeline 'Madi' Palmquist • MacKenzie Michaels Snake Road: Reshaping Attitudes Towards Snakes Through Landscape Management Room 27Johnny Baakliny The Chiwuakee Prairie - Illinois Beach Lake Plain Collaborative Room 47Belynda Alberte Cook County Birding Big Year: A Story of Passion, Disappearing Birds, and How We Save What's Left Rooms 52, 53 - Avian Collective presented by Illinois Audubon SocietyTarik Shahzad Lessons From The Reintroduction of State-Endangered Blanding’s Turtles Rooms 24, 25Callie Klatt Golba • Gary Glowacki • Kathryn McCabe • Richard King Looking in the wrong place: locally-extirpated species of deer mouse finds refuge in degraded habitat Room 42Angelica Bahena • Adam W. Ferguson • Arielle Parsons • Zoe Leone • Molly M. McDonough