Articles by Grist staff

Spilling Me Softly

Salmon are suffering as the West feels the squeeze of California’s energy crisis and the second-worst drought since 1929. Operators of federal dams are being forced to choose between using water to generate hydropower or spilling it downstream to support salmon. The Bonneville Power Administration announced last week that salmon recovery programs on the Columbia […]

Songbird Sings the Blues

Some animals facing extinction aren’t being helped by the Endangered Species Act thanks to a decision last year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to place a moratorium on protecting new species. The service said it had to impose the freeze because it was too busy and short on cash from dealing with lawsuits […]

For the Love of the Lamb

What’s a conservationist to do when the biggest threat to the survival of a species is another rare species? In California’s eastern Sierra Nevada, endangered bighorn sheep could be pushed to extinction by the threatened mountain lions that like to eat them. Not all mountain lions have a taste for mutton — champions of the […]

Is This Bush Green?

Loud cries to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge aside, the Bush administration has taken some steps to make industry edgy, and some right-wingers are growing nervous that Dubya’s environmental policies will differ very little from former President Clinton’s. Said one anonymous industry lobbyist, commenting on the Bush administration, “If their goal is to […]