Either it pranced its way over the wooded trails or some numbskull dumped the carcass. Regardless of how the body of a fairly large black bear wound up in Douglas County recently, it's still a mystery for biologists and officials in the Illinois De...

Gazing at the Fox River from a distance is a whole different deal from taking in the panorama from aboard a watercraft bouncing on the river's current. Jeff Long, a Batavia native who's navigated the Fox by both canoe and kayak, said this is somethi...

Observers note that lakes on the very south end of the state should be good for weekend angling. One note of caution, though: Even though the massive rainfall has ceased to harass us, water levels on some area rivers remain high enough to create ha...

Subdivisions covered with water. House-to-house evacuations by boat. Shelters full of displaced people on cots. Foolhardy challenges of nature's wrath, and incredible acts of heroism. It's not the battered Gulf shore - it's a compilation of scenes f...

Batavia Mayor Jeff Schielke and Ald. Tom Schmitz were peeved about some reckless river behavior during last weekend's storms. "Some individuals who are sportsmen decided their calling was to put themselves in kayaks in the Fox River and fly over the...

While residents in Cook, DuPage and Kane counties continue to wrestle with flooded homes and streets, Lake County officials are breathing a sigh of relief. The Chain O' Lakes, Fox River and Des Plaines River in Lake County remained well below flood...

I have always been a staunch supporter of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the dedicated biologists and competent managers working there. But with the massive budget cuts in that agency, cuts demanded by the governor, the amount of p...

It doesn't do any good to complain, but the traveling public must be made aware of what goes on in our nation's airports, if they don't already know. My tale of woe began long before the Sept. 11 tragedy. I was flying south to visit my mother, and t...