Perhaps he didn't get enough "drip drip drop little April showers" because Bambi really wanted a bath. more ›

Are big cats invading the suburbs? Every couple of years we hear about police getting panicked calls about cougars slinking around. After reading about the latest in Lake Forest, we checked in with Brookfield Zoo. more ›

Rather than call this animal a chupacabra, why didn;t the people who worked to trap it take it somewhere to find out what it is? more ›

Jellyfish! In a South Side Chicago Park District Park lagoon! Even if you don't see the little living floaters (there are plenty of other...ahem...floaters), Sherman Park is worth a trip. more ›

We wouldn't interact with wild cheetahs, but we'd watch video of someone else doing so in a heartbeat. more ›

Wolves. At once revered and reviled, is there a more controversial critter in this country? The battle over wolves in the Northern Rockies actually spilled over into the federal budget battle last week, when a controversial policy rider was slipped into the final bill that booted the critters off the Endangered Species list despite ongoing scientific debate over their recovery. But what gets lost in the noisy fight over wolves out West is that there are way more of them in our neck of the woods. Chicago might be devoid of predators (aside from coyotes and the sexual kind) but we are a car-ride away from howling packs in the counties northwest of Madison. Right now there are 4,000 wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan but a proposed federal rule change might whack those numbers down quickly in the Great Lakes. more ›

We had to chuckle at the breathless coverage of yesterday’s rescue operation in which a Chicago Fire Department boat was dispatched with city Animal Control staffers to save “Holly,” a coyote stuck floating on a tiny ice flow in Belmont Harbor. The story so captured the attention of this town’s media that, for once, Rahm Emanuel almost disappeared from the headlines for the day…almost. But as funny as the story must look to media watchers---it must be an astounding cultural disconnect for folks in the Rocky Mountains, where coyotes are considered problematic varmints and your tax dollars go to poison, trap, or shoot almost 100,000 of them annually. more ›

When a friend of ours visited Kenya a few years ago she stopped by an elephant orphanage operated by The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and fell in love with the cause. In particular she connected with an adorable little blind baby elephant named Ndolo --who was later profiled on 60 Minutes -- and she was deeply moved by the dedication of the people working with the animals and for the Trust. The Trust operates primarily in Tsavo National Park rescuing and raising both elephant and rhino orphans upholding the ivory ban, de-snaring operations, a mobile veterinary project, animal welfare, and general conservation initiatives. more ›

Things are a mess at the Caterpillar plant in Rockdale (near Joliet) this morning after a holding tank overflowed, sending 65,000 gallons of oil sludge spilling out into the surrounding area. Of that, 6,000 gallons wound up in the Des Plaines River. By Sunday night, Illinois Environmental Protection Agency officials claimed the spill had been contained and, according to spokeswoman Maggie Carson, "there is no evidence of a fish kill or harm to water fowl." Ginny Narsete, a spokeswoman for the U.S. EPA, said there was not enough oil or sludge in the water to cut off the oxygen supply to any fish in the river, the biggest danger in these situations. Of course, it was a three mile stretch of the Des Plaines that was affected, so while it's not out of the question there wasn't much harm to wildlife, it's still 6,000 gallons of oil sludge; that's going to mess with some part of the eco-system, right? Officials insist there is no eminent danger to any humans living in the area, though. more ›