The estuaries that proliferate across the United States can be hard to define — and protect. But their role in a healthy environment makes them a crucial focus of good reporting. The latest Issue Backgrounder explores their importance, the many challenges they face, and how to track the agencies and programs meant to protect them.
A running list of endangered rivers becomes an annual starting point for strong local coverage of critical water issues. This week’s TipSheet spotlights the latest additions to an inventory of trouble spots around the United States, plus key angles and issues for coverage, and a selection of top resources.
"Deep in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia, wildlife workers trek up above 9,800 feet to save some of the world’s most rare carnivores, Ethiopian wolves."
"A proposed budget [now enacted] to keep the federal government running through the rest of the fiscal year, which wraps up at the end of September, would bring millions of dollars to the National Park Service if approved by Congress."
"A coalition of environmental and animal-welfare groups sued on Tuesday to challenge the Trump administration's moves toward allowing the importation of the heads, hides and tusks of African elephants as hunting trophies."
"A new survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows that today, only about 5 percent of Americans, 16 years old and older, actually hunt. That's half of what it was 50 years ago and the decline is expected to accelerate over the next decade."
"The world's last surviving male northern white rhino has died after months of poor health, his carers said."
"The last two surviving wolves on Isle Royale might soon get 20 to 30 new neighbors, after the National Park Service advanced a wolf reintroduction plan Friday for the wilderness island on Lake Superior."
"The Trump administration will rewrite rules governing how to choose areas considered critical to endangered species to settle a lawsuit brought by 20 states and four trade groups, according to state attorneys general."
"If you’re lucky, you can spot a gray wolf in Yellowstone National Park. But a century ago, you’d have been hard pressed to find any there. Poisonings and unregulated hunting obliterated nearly all of these majestic canines from Canada to Mexico, their original home range. Then the rewilding began."
