The Arizona Game and Fish Department has begun dropping fake plants and other habitat into Roosevelt Lake. Widely varying lake levels at Roosevelt pose problems for natural vegetation.
The work is part of a larger plan, the Tonto National Forest Lakes Habitat Improvement Project, which seeks to help bass and crappie bounce back and boost the sustainability — and fishing prospects — of Salt River reservoirs and Bartlett Lake.
As Congress eases rules for selling public lands and considers measures to weaken the Endangered Species Act, conservation efforts may rely increasingly on private facilities like the Phoenix Zoo, which supports its Arthur L. and Elaine V. Johnson Foundation Native Species Conservation Center with a portion of its gate receipts.
A population explosion of golden algae, a fast-growing invasive plant, has killed thousands of threadfin shad and some gizzard shad at Apache Lake, a reservoir in central Arizona.
When co-discovers Gary Tenen and Randy Tufts found the blowhole entrance to the caverns in 1974, they did something extraordinary: They kept it a secret. And when they could no longer shield the caves through secrecy, they sought out science to help protect Kartchner Caverns post-development.
Research has supported Kartchner ever since, but the reverse is true as well. Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk to find out how:
After 4 billion years, the dwarf planet Ceres is still carrying a surprising amount of water weight — as much as 30 percent.
The finding, which was published in the Jan. 6 edition of the journal Science, is consistent with earlier models, and provides valuable clues to how Ceres formed.
