Environment

Wet meadows are small but crucial landscape elements among the pines above the Mogollon Rim. They benefit plant diversity, wildlife and watershed health.

A cactus no bigger than a paperclip grows across the rocky eastern slopes of the Kaibab Plateau. Its thin, long spines protrude from its rotund body like a plump hedgehog.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says Arizona will likely continue to take cuts in its Colorado River supply next year. The region’s historic drought shows no signs of easing.

Fewer than 2% of North America’s bark beetle species attack trees, but those that do have killed billions of conifers across the West over the last 30 years.

A new paper coauthored by Northern Arizona University scientists proposes solutions for the decline of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The lake’s level has dropped about 4 inches a year since the 1990s.

A coalition is working to add federal protections to the Upper Verde River and Sycamore Creek via a Wild and Scenic River designation. It's threatened by groundwater pumping and long-term drought.

President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team named outgoing North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to lead the agency that manages the nation’s natural and cultural resources.

Biologists have begun re-introducing endangered black-footed ferrets in Aubrey Valley near Seligman. It's Arizona’s first ferret reintroduction in more than 30 years.

A report from the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter warns parts of the Upper Verde River could go dry within the next two decades if water use trends continue.

A new study of aspens on the San Francisco Peaks shows they’re struggling to grow to full-sized trees. But Northern Arizona University forest ecologist Mike Stoddard has a surprising solution: asking hunters to help.