Event Type: Meeting
Program: Chicago Black-crowned Night Heron Project
Speaker: Jo Fessett & Amy Lardner
Date: Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Location: Matteson Public Library
Meeting Room A - take the elevator or stairs to the lower level
Address: 801 School Avenue, Matteson, IL (map)
The Black-crowned Night Heron has been endangered in Illinois since 1977. Conservationists are concerned that populations are in continued decline in this state, the Great Lakes, and the Northeast. Despite being of least concern worldwide, night herons are facing challenges.
Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo is home to an unusually large rookery. In 2005, they started nesting in multiple areas in Lincoln Park as they abandoned nesting in other Chicago spots. By 2022, they had gradually consolidated into a single rookery inside the Zoo. Nesting in only a single spot can imperil the birds if disease or other dangers arise. This rookery is now the focus of new collaborative research (which Thorn Creek Audubon has supported) to figure out how to encourage the birds to establish additional Chicago rookeries and help conserve night herons.
Join us for an update from Illinois Audubon Society Executive Director Jo Fessett and Chicago Black-crowned Night Heron Project founder Amy Lardner about the project and what's been learned so far - including their own personal anecdotes about the 2024 field season and the prospects for 2025 and beyond.
Joanne Fessett has worked for the Illinois Audubon Society since 2006. Before becoming Executive Director in 2022, she was the Assistant to the Director. Jo’s history with ISA began in 2000 as a Board member and she has served in numerous key capacities. Jo’s past employment includes Argonne National Laboratory near her hometown of Lemont, Illinois, and The Nature Conservancy. She received a B.A. from Lewis University (Business Administration).
Amy Lardner grew up in a birding family in Iowa on the Mississippi before going off to New York and doing a long detour through business school and the auto industry, before returning to her roots, settling in Chicago, and taking roost in conservation volunteering through a number of organizations, including Chicago Piping Plovers, Openlands Treekeepers, and Cook County Master Naturalists. In 2021, her realization that the Lincoln Park Zoo rookery had become the last known large nesting group - by a big multitude - inspired her to champion Black-crowned Night Heron conservation.
Everyone is welcome to attend this program!
The Library provides meeting room space as a community service; this Thorn Creek Audubon meeting is not sponsored or endorsed by the Matteson Area Public Library District.
