Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The osprey in Illinois has risen out of “endangered” status over the past decade. It is now “threatened.”

Under the stewardship of University of Illinois Springfield associate professor Tih-Fen Ting and others, the number of known breeding pairs has risen from sixteen in 2013 to ninety in 2023.

Ting and her team are “hacking” the osprey.

In this case, Ting is not, say, disrupting the osprey’s computer networks.

Hacking, she says, “basically means to translocate wild osprey chicks from other parts of the country and bring them to central Illinois, raise them, and release them.”

Ting, director of UIS’ School of Integrated Sciences, Sustainability, and Public Health, says the osprey are coming from Kentucky, Virginia, and Massachusetts.

She adds the osprey, voracious for fish, provide important information based on how well they thrive.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Illinois Department of Natural Resources are assisting.