Yosemite's Building Zoo

Pioneer History Center, June 2007. Photo by Burke Griggs

Robin Pam and Erin Beller consider what's historic and what's not. From High Country News.

Mike Huckabee's Squirrel Recipe

Slate.com investigates.

Wolverine Appears in Sierra Nevada

The tail end of the California Wolverine. Photo by Katie Moriarty.

Katie Moriarty was hoping to get pictures of weasels. What she got--so it seems--is the first documented wolverine sighting in the Sierra Nevada since 1922. "The conventional wisdom was that they were pretty much gone from California," said Bill Zielinski, a research ecologist for the Forest Service who was working with Moriatry.

"We know they are in the Sierra," said Paul Spitler, public lands director for the Center for Biological Diversity. "We don't know how many and we don't know how far they travel, but we certainly know they exist."

The AP Story.

Plenty Magazine's Extinction Blog.

Update on March 23, 2008 by SG

More evidence from the CA Dept. of Fish & Game.

Desertgold's A'blooming on Furnace Creek Fan

On the road to the Shoshone Rez., Death Valley, March 1, 2008. Photo by Devin McDonell

And the shooters are out in force.

Ranger Charlie Callagan's Wildflower Update.

Flushing the Grand

Experimental High Flow, 11/21/2004. Photo: Dale Blank, U.S. Geological Survey

Federal flood control managers will release up to 41,500 cubic feet per second of water from the Glen Canyon Dam as part of a 60-hour "blowout," starting March 5, "to simulate springtime floods." Some National Park officials aren't sure it's a good idea.

The LA Times story.

The Park Service's "High-Flow Experiment" information page.

The USGS Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center.

The New York Times looks at questions raised.

Pollution without Borders

Sampling for Contaminants, NPS PhotoIn Yosemite and Sequoia: mercury, PCBs, pesticides in rivers and lakes... male fish developing female organs, etc.

Where's the stuff coming from? Industrial-scale farming in California's Central Valley—and, of course, China.

The AP Story.

The National Park Service's Western Airborne Contaminants Assessment Project

Continuity of Parks.