Name: Sharing our Shore and the Successful Return of the Endangered Piping Plovers Back to Waukegan Beaches
Start: 2025-03-01T11:15:00-0600
End: 2025-03-01T12:00:00-0600

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.

Saturday March 1, 2025 11:15am - 12:00pm CST

Rooms 52, 53 - Avian Collective presented by Illinois Audubon Society

In 2023, 4 captive reared piping plover chicks were released at Illinois Beach State Park in Waukegan. They were monitored by the Lake County Audubon Sharing Our Shore-Waukegan volunteers. A 30 minute film tracks the life cycle of these birds from their release as fledglings, their 2023 migration to southern wintering grounds and their amazing return to nest and successfully raise young in 2024. Their story is beautifully shared in this film and will be followed by a panel of Piping Plover volunteers and others involved in the Sharing Our Shore-Waukegan project and Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort.

In 2018, a pair of endangered Great Lakes piping plovers attempted to nest in a busy gravel park lot at the Waukegan Municipal Beach. Due to the dangers posed to the nest, the eggs were salvaged and brought to a facility in Michigan for captive-rearing. That plover pair relocated to Chicago in 2019 and went on to become the internationally famous 'Monty & Rose.' The Lake County Audubon chapter chose the challenging route of transforming a bird tragedy into a positive community impact. The chapter approached the city with a plan to put in place a program to help monitor birds on the Waukegan lakefront, including a special piping plover monitoring team and to provide education and public outreach for the community. The partnership, named Sharing Our Shore - Waukegan, was created in 2019.

After the film, a panel will be available for a questions and answer session. Panel members include:

Sharing Our Shore - Waukegan Initiative Members Carolyn Lueck, Glen Moss and Diane Rosenberg
Sharing Our Shore - Waukegan Initiative Piping Plover Monitoring Team members including Carolyn Lueck and Lisa Rundle
Illinois Department of Natural Resources: Brad Semel, Endangered Species Recovery Specialist
Our final panel is still being assembled so watch for updates.

Presenters