CHICAGO — The thousands of vacant lots across Chicago are considered eyesores by some, but not by the animals and plants that live there.
"They represent this patch of wildness in the city," said Seth Magle, head of Lincoln Park Zoo's Urban Wildlife Institute and executive director of its new Urban Wildlife Information Network. "They're probably full of weeds and garbage, but they're also home to animals trying to find food and shelter."
The vacant lots, which the city has been selling for $1, are also filled with plants, wild grass, trees and flowers, which are beginning to bloom. If a lot is left vacant, some plants will start to sprout right away, Magle said, while some Chicago lots have been vacant so long they're home to large trees.
Magle compared vacant lots to cemeteries in terms of attracting wildlife.
"It's a green place where people don't go," Magle said.
The vacant lots are home to raccoons, squirrels, possums, countless numbers of birds and coyotes. Magle said his Urban Wildlife Institute's camera trap program has documented coyotes sleeping in extremely small patches of green space, even in a bush in someone's front yard.
"We live in an urban ecosystem," Magle said. "Vacant lots remind us there's a place for wildness in the city."
You can help identify the animals found in Chicago as part of the zoo's Chicago Wildlife Watch.