Diane Hope

Millions of birds are killed every year by electrical power lines—especially in the wide-open country of the Colorado Plateau where power lines and poles are often all that’s available for birds to nest and roost on.

Northern Arizona University biologist Jason Wilder made a grisly discovery recently: a plant that ensnares and kills birds.

Mohave rattlesnakes are armed with a powerful weapon—venom that can immobilize or kill their prey. People have believed the Mohave’s venom held a neurotoxin, a cocktail of enzymes and peptides that paralyze the nervous system—making a bite from this snake especially deadly.

Over the last two years, U.S. Forest Service biologists have gone high-tech to identify the bats gracing the night skies of Arizona’s Red Rock Ranger District.

There's a buzz in the air in southern Utah these days. A recent study shows incredible diversity among the bees of Grand Staircase-Escalante. Some 660 different species have been identified in this national monument—almost as many as all the bee species east of the Mississippi River!