Field Museum, GN90670_10d.

Photo: John Weinstein

A small handful of conservationists outline the vision and then invite their bosses, the CEOs of 34 agencies and organizations, to gather around a big table at The Field Museum, founding the Chicago Wilderness consortium. They create a loose affiliation to bring collective resources to regional conservation challenges.

A small handful of conservationists outline the vision and then invite their bosses, the CEOs of 34 agencies and organizations, to gather around a big table at The Field Museum, founding the Chicago Wilderness consortium. They create a loose affiliation to bring collective resources to regional conservation challenges.

Chicago WILDERNESS Magazine pokes its head out from the still shifting sands of the consortium. It runs for its first three years out of the home of founding editor Debra Shore.

Photo: Rob Curtis

In June, the Asian longhorned beetle, an exotic bug with a taste for our native trees, is discovered in Chicago.

Peregrine falcon.

Photo: Rob Curtis

The 142-year-old Chicago Academy of Sciences opens the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in the heart of Lincoln Park.

Lights Out Chicago first asks all high-rises to dim their lights at night during migration. The program now saves over 10,000 birds annually.

In October, Chicago elects the peregrine falcon as official city bird. After recovering from a long battle with DDT, the falcon wins on the strength of its platform: “ridding the city of pests and other vermin.”

Officials install an electric barrier in the Sanitary and Ship Canal north of Joliet to keep the round goby, an invasive fish, from entering the Mississippi River. (It also keeps Asian carp from reaching Lake Michigan.)

Plants of Concern launches, sending volunteer monitors—sworn to secrecy—to sites where rare plants occur in the wild.

Chicago Wilderness releases the Biodiversity Recovery Plan. The document guides conservation efforts of the 100 Chicago Wilderness partners.

Nippersink.

Photo: David Schwaegler

McHenry County Conservation District opens the channel into Nippersink Creek following a multi-year effort to return the stream to its original, natural course.

For violation of wetland laws, the Material Service Corporation contributes $7.5 million to regional habitat conservation

In January, a 17-acre wetland in Bartlett takes the national stage as the U.S. Supreme Court removes protections for “isolated wetlands” not connected to a navigable waterways. The court allows the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County to fill the wetland.

The Orchid Recovery Project announces white fringed orchids are up from 199 individuals to more than 1,000.

Common tern.

Photo: Garth McElroy

At the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, conservationists protect a breeding common tern colony, the first in Illinois since 1983.

In September, West Nile virus arrives in Chicago. Crows, jays, and chickadees die in large numbers.

Biologists resurvey 62 Chicago-region sites identified by the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory in 1976 as high-quality ecosystems. Twenty-two percent of the sites were “either developed or completely overgrown with brush since the 1976 survey.”

Whooping crane.

Photo: Rich Witkiewicz

DuPage County Forest Preserve District confirms bobcat in Waterfall Glen and Greene Valley forest preserves.

In April, whooping cranes land in a Cook County preserve, the endangered species’ first recorded Chicago Wilderness stopover in over a century.

In July, Chicago Wilderness Woods Audit monitors survey 246 random woodland plots in eight counties to find only 18 percent in good or excellent condition.

In August, scientists and volunteers find more than 2,200 species in 24 hours (“an average of 15 species every ten minutes”) at the Calumet BioBlitz at Wolf Lake.

Buckthorn.

Photo: Rob Curtis

In May, researchers show dramatic genetic differences between white-footed mice in northeastern Illinois today and those from 150 years ago.

Fritillary.

Photo: Randy Emmitt

In March, Mayor Daley bulldozes airplane runways of Meigs Field under cover of darkness. The drama stirs controversy, but also (un)paves the way for a possible natural area in the heart of Chicago.

In July, buckthorn—an ecologically destructive invasive shrub—is added to the Illinois Noxious Weeds Act, rendering its purchase, sale, and distribution illegal.

In October, Notebaert Nature Museum biologists reintroduce Aphrodite fritillary butterfly to Glacial Park in McHenry County.

In February, Illinois removes the river otter and three birds—the red-shouldered hawk, pied-billed grebe, and brown creeper—from the state threatened species list due to increased populations.

In April, Houston Wilderness launches in Texas, based on the model of Chicago Wilderness.

Gypsy moth caterpillar.

Photo: Bill Beatty/AKM Images, Inc.

Volunteers and naturalists begin to regularly find tan clusters of gypsy moth eggs as the invaders reach Chicago Wilderness. Gypsy moth caterpillars can defoliate large acreages, with a particular taste for oaks.

Bald eagles build a nest in the Chicago region for the first time in a century, on the Little Calumet River.

Partners for Parks and Wildlife forms to defend critical state funding for open space and natural areas.

August: Spring Brook Nature Center introduces ten state-endangered barn owls into DuPage County.

Grassland audit.

Photo: Karen Glennemeier

In January, Illinois elects state reptile (painted turtle) and amphibian (tiger salamander), both common to Chicago Wilderness.

In April, Asian longhorned beetle quarantine is lifted from Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood after two years without a sighting (and the removal of 1,770 trees).

The Chicago Wilderness Grassland Audit finds only 25 percent of surveyed areas in good ecological condition. “Of the 20 most abundant species in Chicago-region grasslands, 13 were nonnative and 6 were species that require active control through restoration and management,” researchers report.

In May, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth hits theaters.

Chicago becomes first of the largest US cities with a biodiversity plan, the Chicago Nature and Wildlife Plan.

Whooping cranes now regular, though infrequent, visitors in regional preserves.

Chicago Wilderness “Report Card” grades natural areas and species throughout the region, setting baseline for future progress. Low grades reflect the need for increased habitat restoration.

Chicago Wilderness reaches 200 member organizations.

Referenda pass to fund land acquisition and restoration in McHenry, Kane, and Kendall Counties, bringing the Chicago region’s ten-year total of public funding approval to more than $1 billion.

In June, Leave No Child Inside brings attention to the growing disconnect between kids and nature, calling all kids and parents outside.