Deal reached on Colorado River water use; will affect Lake Mead, Glen Canyon NRAs and other PAs

The Biden administration has negotiated a hard-fought agreement among California, Arizona and Nevada to take less water from the drought-strained Colorado River, a deal that reduces, for now, the risk of the river running dry below the Hoover Dam, which would jeopardize the water supply for Phoenix, Los Angeles and some of America’s most productive agricultural land.

The agreement, to be announced Monday, calls for the federal government to pay about $1.2 billion to irrigation districts, cities and Native American tribes in the three states if they temporarily use less water. The states have also agreed to make additional cuts beyond that amount to generate the total reductions needed to protect the collapse of the river.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-deal.html

New study suggests ivory-billed woodpecker may not be extinct — but some experts skeptical

If there’s new hope, it’s blurry. What’s certain: The roller coaster tale of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a majestic bird whose presumed extinction has been punctuated by a series of contested rediscoveries, is going strong.

The latest twist is a peer-reviewed study Thursday in the journal Ecology and Evolution presenting sighting reports, audio recordings, trail camera images and drone video. Collected over the last decade in a Louisiana swamp forest, the precise location omitted for the birds’ protection, the authors write that the evidence suggests the “intermittent but repeated presence” of birds that look and behave like ivory-billed woodpeckers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/climate/ivory-billed-woodpecker.html

After decades of expanding their range outside Yellowstone NP, grizzlies pull back

CODY, Wyoming — For nearly five decades the grizzly population emanating from Yellowstone National Park has pulsed farther and farther outward, reclaiming old haunts where humans wiped out their forebears in the early 20th century.

No longer.

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2023/05/yellowstone-area-grizzly-bears-have-stopped-expanding-their-range