Ken Klick News Today

St. Francis Woods, an 80-acre forest on the north end of the Independence Grove Forest Preserve near Libertyville, has been inducted into the Old-Growth Forest Network, the first in northern Illinois.

“The smoke is very eye-catching,” said Kelly Schultz, a stewardship ecologist with the Lake County Forest Preserves. “Spring and fall are the primary seasons you will see our smoke.”

Habitat restoration is a series of land management activities that improve the health, productivity and array of species on a particular site, ecologists at the Lake County Forest Preserves say. Sometimes that process involves removing nonnative and invasive trees and other species.

Illinois Department of Public Health officials are warning residents to be wary of ticks while doing outdoor activities amid the return of warmer weather. May is National Lyme Disease Awareness Month.

Monarch butterflies raised in an environmental science classroom at Libertyville High School are set to be released for their long, perilous migration to the mountains outside Mexico City.