With the temperatures rising to oven-like heights these days, it can be easy to forget that us human types are not the only ones having to deal with the sweaty nastiness. Animals, of course, also are in a need of a respite from the heat.
At the Brookfield Zoo Wednesday, lions, tigers, bears and other large animals were being given giant blocks of ice so that they could keep their cool under the hot sun, as you can see in the totally adorable NBC Chicago video embedded below.
In smaller animal news, a 64-year-old Elgin, Ill., man was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm and criminal damage to property after firing a rifle bullet into a neighbor's home while he was busily hunting squirrels in backyard, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. No humans were harmed in the incident, though we can't be so sure about the squirrels in this case.
In Glen Ellyn, Ill., the windstorms that tore through the area last week left the Willowbrook Wildlife Center overwhelmed with what they said were "a record number" of wildlife inquiries in a single day, according to Chicago Wildlife News. They eventually admitted about 90 newly homeless animals, mostly birds and squirrels, into the facility. Many of the animals were knocked out of their treetop homes during the massive storm.
In other bird-related news, a number of ospreys have been spotted in the Chicago area lately, showing that the once threatened, fish-eating bird of prey has recovered, as the Chicago Tribune reported.
It turns out that a pair of roosters are keeping a number of residents in the 4400 block of North Paulina Avenue awake with their crowing in wee morning hours since Saturday, according to the Center Square Journal. While one was captured by a neighborhood family on Saturday and picked up Monday by Animal Control, a second has continued to strut around the neighborhood, thus far evading capture.
Finally, the Friends of the Chicago River were in for quite a surprise last weekend when they came across a large snapping turtle along the North Branch of the river. They shared the photo on their Facebook page, for your bafflement.
View more videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com.