Lake County's black bear just the latest wild animal roaming the suburbs

The case of a black bear sighted last week near Gurnee Mills shopping mall and twice over the weekend near Antioch remains a mystery.

While the neighborhood south of Route 173 and east of Route 59 in Antioch remains abuzz, the bear photographed on a backyard deck Saturday evening remains elusive.

Wildlife biologists and conservation police are monitoring the situation, but the bear's current location is unknown and there have been no reported sightings since early Sunday morning, said Jayette Bolinski, communications director for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

The bear likely is the same one seen in Gurnee last week. Bolinski said it has not caused any problems, and the IDNR encourages people to let it continue its movements without interference.

Those who live in the vicinity should secure their garbage cans and barbecue grills and stop feeding birds for a few days, the IDNR suggests. And if you see a bear, report it to https://bit.ly/IDNRwildlifereport.

The IDNR also advises not running, and don't surprise the bear. Stand your ground, make noise and look large by standing straight with your arms in the air, then slowly back away. A black bear is not likely to attack a person unless it feels trapped or provoked.

You should go inside a building or vehicle if possible. A bear may swat at the ground or surrounding vegetation, lunge toward you, vocalize, blow air out of its mouth or pop its jaws. This is defensive behavior to warn you to move away.

Any bear on the offensive will move toward you quickly, the IDNR says. If you have food, drop it and keep moving away. If a bear does makes contact with you, always try to fight it off. Do not play dead.

Black bears don't live in Illinois, but there have been five sightings since 2008, mostly in the northwest corner of the state, according to IDNR. The most recent confirmed sighting before last week's was in Jo Daviess County in June 2020.

While the bear is the latest creature far from home roaming the Chicago area, it's far from the first wild animal to capture the public's attention for being where it wasn't expected. Cows, bison, a monkey, zebras, a wild pig and even a cougar have been in the headlines over the years. Here's a recap:

Monkey see

In June 2005, Elgin police searched the woods on the city's southwest side for a large primate after several unrelated people reported seeing a 4-foot-tall animal.

Witnesses told police they saw a monkey but couldn't say what color or type it was. Some authorities thought it might be a prank, but the reports were not discounted.

Based on witness information, police thought they might be looking for a chimpanzee, but whatever it was, authorities never found it.

Black and white

It wasn't a mirage: Two zebras were caught ambling along on Route 47 and Reinking Road in Pingree Grove in October 2021.

A young male and female somehow escaped from a pen at an indoor zoo at Goebbert's Pumpkin Patch and Apple Orchard and sneaked out the back doors.

“It was pretty exciting for a while,” Jacob Goebbert, an employee of the farm, said of the two-hour effort to catch the animals.

The zebras crossed Route 47 several times and wandered north, through farm fields, to Big Timber Road.

Police joined the chase and closed roads, concerned the zebras could get hit by a vehicle or lost in the corn stalks, or that gawkers would cause crashes.

Goebbert's and zoo workers tracked the animals on ATVs, eventually corralling one alongside Big Timber and the other in a fenced-in pasture off Sandwald Road. Neither was injured.

Hog wild

A male feral pig roamed the Springbrook Prairie Forest Preserve near Naperville for months before being shot and killed by a hunter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on October 2016, after it was deemed a nuisance animal.

No one knew where the pig came from, but it's possible someone didn't want it anymore and left it at the preserve. The matter had to be resolved, according to the forest district, because of the damage the pig could have done in protected parts of the preserve. Domestic pigs also can carry 30 different diseases, many of which are transmissible to humans.

The USDA was contacted after an owner couldn't be found and it took a few weeks to find and remove it.

The pig was attracted to a safe area and hunters using bait and trail cameras focused on the food to determine when it would come to eat.

On the prowl

Cougar sightings in Lake County in 2004 prompted the health department to issue a rare safety alert to residents and schools.

“We've gotten so many calls, it seems highly likely there is a cougar out there,” a spokeswoman said at the time.

Dozens of sightings had been reported primarily in the Antioch and Libertyville areas. But reports had been logged as long as two years earlier in various locales, including Chicago, Sycamore and Wisconsin.

People were told to avoid walking alone in woody, bushy areas and to keep cats indoors.

The clamor subsided for a while but resurfaced in late March 2008, when a cougar was sighted in North Chicago. Subsequent reports of a big cat came from Round Lake Park and Wilmette.

On April 14 in Chicago, a male cougar was shot and killed by police. It was the same animal positively identified in Wisconsin, the first confirmed instance there in a century.

Until then, only two confirmed cases had occurred in Illinois since the 1860s - in 2000 and 2004.

More recently, and further to the west, a mountain lion was struck by a vehicle and killed in October along Interstate 88 in DeKalb County.

Where the bison roams

In the fall of 2021, a 1,300-pound bison that escaped while being delivered to a farmstead in Wauconda became such a common but curious sight in southwestern Lake County it earned the nicknames “Tyson,” “Billie” or “Billy.”

After roaming for months without being captured, the bison settled in at Lakewood Forest Preserve in April 2022. Some thought the animal harmless unless provoked. Others thought the bison posed a potential safety risk to visitors and equestrians.

Just before Memorial Day, the forest preserve district announced the bison had been “safely and humanely” located, captured and removed by a specialist.

Fines were levied against Milk and Honey Farmstead owner Scott Comstock, and a dispute over ownership and possession of the animal wound up in court.

In November 2022, a court order allowed the bison to be released to the Intertribal Buffalo Council. In February, a judge ruled the delivery to Comstock was never made and the case was dismissed.

Tyson/Billy is now living at the Forest County Potawatomi Reservation in northern Wisconsin.