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Protecting Local Species continued
Supporting Urban Wildlife earlier. Very little is known about how to congregate, with the ultimate goal of
these animals survive in an urban setting. promoting populations in Cook County.
The veterinarians at Brookfield Zoo To better understand how otters are getting
provide some of the conservation work by in the now-urban Chicago River and It took about 10 years to catch just
undertaken here at the Society. Senior staff associated waterways, Langan partnered one otter because they are so elusive and
veterinarian Dr. Jennifer Langan has been with the Forest Preserves of Cook County intelligent, outsmarting the trapping
involved with collaborative work with local to track them. That involves temporarily mechanism. Despite the challenges,
forest preserves for 16 years. In that time, capturing an otter and implanting it Langan and her peers have caught and
she has implanted fish with transmitters with a transmitter. The actual process tagged two adult river otters—a male
to help track them, assisted with a health of implantation falls to Langan. and a female—and hope to capture more
assessment of badgers, and investigated in coming years. Thanks to this project,
West Nile virus in native waterfowl and Once a transmitter is in place and they may be collecting data for decades.
bacterial infection in wild turtles. an otter has received a health check,
Forest Preserves biologists can track the Always More to Do
But she is most excited about a joint animal and discover where it goes in
effort looking into the ecology of otters an urban setting. (Urban otters behave For all that we do here, there’s always
in Cook County. These animals began differently than rural otters.) The more to do. Curator Andy Snider and
returning to the area within the past 20 project is leading to the possibility of Bill Zeigler, the Society’s senior vice
years, reestablishing a population that had protecting open lands where otters tend president of animal programs, are both
been extirpated by fur trappers a century eager to become more involved with
a project to breed and release Hine’s
16 GATEWAYS | NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
