■ During shutdown, wildlife returned to lakefront.
Wildlife has returned to the empty Chicago lakefront
Say you were to visit the lakefront.
You can’t, of course; the mayor closed the Chicago lakefront on March 26 to recreation, to promote social distancing and slow the spread of coronavirus. But say you could go, right now. What would you see there? What are you missing? Well, I can tell you, and Tribune photographer Jason Wambsgans, he can show you. He got an OK from the city to shoot our beloved stretch of recently-abandoned Chicago. And here’s what’s there:
Nothing. No one.
Just animals, a lot of birds, flora in bloom. Just nature, unimpeded. A steady stillness, a compelling absence of pace. Robins are not playing cards, coyotes have not formed book clubs. Yet raccoons, some waddle up to you in the afternoon. I watched a fish leap high out of a canal, twice, as if delirious with freedom, then splash back, hard and loud.
Piping plovers have returned, but not the bird-watchers to study them or dogs to chase them. Piers grow dark with lounging Caspian terns, and along beaches, there’s no yoga, but the smell of skunk gets so intense that I winced and looked down, as if I had stepped into a mine field, as if a skunk would be there, playing at my feet. (Alas, nope.)
When the wind dies and the lakefront refuses to budge for long moments, everywhere you turn, every patch of grass, wooded crook and strip of sand, without food wrappers and footprints, the lakefront looks more like a museum diorama of a lakefront, off hours.
You feel watched.
At 4:30 a.m. on a Wednesday, with the sky softening and chirps rising, you sense eyes on you. Because they are. The residents have had eight Chicagoan-free weeks to themselves, and now here you come, reminding wildlife of the cruelest lesson — nothing lasts. The caws of gulls, normally caustic as a smoker’s croak, explode with obscenities. Brad Semel, endangered species recovery specialist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and one of the few who has been to the lakefront lately, described Montrose Point as feeling “surreal.” Still, it’s more feeling than actuality. “Animals that are nocturnal and restricted to when people and cars are not around, who are used ducking under stuff to get out of the way, they extended their hours, so to speak. There seems to be more loafing, relaxing. It must feel as strange for them as it does for us.”
Here’s the thing: When the lakefront was closed to people in March, then stayed closed to people (going on two months now), it really was that most overused of pandemic cliches. It actually was unprecedented. Archaeologists believe humans have been a fixture along the western shore of Lake Michigan for roughly
30,000 years. “My grandmother used to tell me that we have been here since the beginning of time,” said John Low, an associate professor of American Indian Studies at Ohio State University, and a member of the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi tribe, which lived along the lake for hundreds of years before Chicago was settled. Before the Potawatomi, Peoria and Meskwaki, there was the Miami tribe; before them, the Adena and Hopewell people.
There were others. Many (but not all) Native Americans left with the Treaty of Chicago in 1833. Soon after, public use of the lakefront picked up steam. By the mid-19th century, recreation along Lake Michigan was popular. Then came Lake Shore Drive. And finally, the Burnham Plan of 1909, which cemented the notion that the lakefront would be a public resource.
My point is, you need to go back before all of that to find the lakefront empty of people.
In fact, it’s still not entirely unoccupied. There are still police watching for rogue joggers, and park district contractors who are mowing and yanking up invasive plants. There are conservationists. But along the cement walls that point toward Oak Street, where fishermen cast day and night during normal times, there is evidence of intruders: A note spray-painted along the walkway reads “COVID-19 2020 Lonely.” When I looked again, I realize it said “Lovely.” Both work. Montrose Point is eerie and placid all day. And cleaner than I recall. Every trash can seems toppled and stripped of trash. Silhouettes of the usual thieves — the raccoons — stand dark in open fields, outlined by street lamps.
From the more wooded brush come the sound of snaps and coos and crackles. A bird as yellow as a plastic bath toy alights on a limb. Some branches look heavy with comings and goings. “Right now is the height of spring migration,” said Doug Stotz, senior conservation ecologist at the Field Museum. “Montrose is maybe the best place to see it. I’m sure people in Lincoln Park now are frustrated they can’t get out there.”
The upside, if you’re a bird, this year’s migration might be less stressful than usual.
If you’re a bird, please note: You can wear your old sweatpants to this year’s migration. I mean, who really cares now, right? Nature, in general, is seeing a brief reprieve from us.
Low noted to me that the relationship between Native Americans and animals along the lakefront was considered reciprocal and coexisting, that the animals who lived there were thought to be their relatives; if you hunted one, it was believed, the animal sacrificed itself for you. More typically, our relationship with nature is one of benign neglect, ignorance. We don’t pay attention every day to the nature that exists around us. We rush past it, don’t consider it — unless we’re forced to shelter in place, then we see coyotes, foxes, an owl on a lamppost. “But at Montrose, there is a quality right now I never experienced,” said Jason Steger, natural areas manager for the Chicago Park District. “It seems like big nature there. We spent a time creating the habitats, but they get overused by Chicagoans. Which is the point. It is a public service. Still, with nobody present, for one, we’re seeing ephemerals (wildflowers) we’ve never seen here before.”
Which is what we hope to hear, right?
That nature will find a way? On the shortlist of magical moments to come out of this pandemic are the frequent videos and reports of wildlife seeming to reclaim territory once dominated by humans. Whales lofting along the French coast, baby turtles without fear of being trampled on Brazilian beaches. A flamingo boom in Albania, herds of boars strolling through Israeli towns, mountain lions sleeping away the days in suburban Colorado. It all captures our imagination so much we get carried away, leading to the inevitable hoaxes — most notably apocryphal stories of dolphins in the Venetian canals.
Which is perfectly of a piece with that most recent “Jurassic Park” movie and its scenes of free-range dinosaurs roaring at zoo animals, or a mention in “Avengers: Endgame” that, with half of mankind gone, whales have returned to the Hudson River in New York.
There’s actually much pre-COVID history and precedent for animals returning to old hangouts. Pronghorn antelope appear to be returning to California, Iowans have seen more black bears, wolverines were spotted in the Sierra Nevada. With no one around, the DMZ between North and South Korea has flourished with red-crowned cranes, and gray wolves have returned to the abandoned lands where Chernobyl stood.
There’s nothing quite so dramatic here.
T.J. Benson of the Illinois Natural History Survey expects more activity, with more room for foraging, from the animals already here. You’ve likely heard reports of coyotes, yet coyotes have been in Chicago. Vast evolutionary change takes longer than eight weeks. Still these images, these stories, suggest some renewed freedom for the natural world, which is nice to believe. It’s delightful to imagine, to borrow a bestselling book title, a world without us enjoying itself. There’s a downside, of course: Paradoxical as it sounds, some animals bank on our waste — French fries, garbage — to supplement their diets. Never mind that the lakefront is closed because of a new disease and scientists have long warned about new diseases brought on by species decline, the shrinking of natural habitats, the trafficking of endangered animals — indeed, as recently as May, Mexican authorities seized a massive shipment of turtles (some endangered) headed for China.
“One thing I hope we take away from this crisis is we keep thinking of and noticing the animals near us,” said Seth Magle, director of the Urban Wildlife Institute at the Lincoln Park Zoo. “I see people doing it now and hope we retain that feeling, that we ask how we want to live alongside wildlife living alongside us. You hope for a mindfulness there.”
So, no elephants in the Loop, no sharks in the lake, no dinosaurs roaming Montrose.
Just another reminder of the world all around us, the places we choose to overlook.
“At Montrose, there is a quality right now I never experienced . ... It seems like big nature there. We spent a time creating the habitats ... with nobody present, we’re seeing ephemerals (wildflowers) we’ve never seen here before.”
Jason Steger, natural areas manager for the Chicago Park District