Lake Mead, a manmade reservoir, supports a diverse selection of animals, including the emblem of the United States – the bald eagle. A team of wildlife biologists from several agencies, including the National Park Service, fanned out in boats for their annual survey of the national bird. The numbers are put into a national database, which helps monitor the once-imperiled species. (Andrea Cornejo)
UNLV graduate students spent a week writing their dissertations during a new writing boot camp hosted by the university. Natalie Bruzda/Las Vegas Review-Journal.
A new forecast for the Colorado River says the outlook for the coming year is bleak. The National Weather Service predicts the river will flow at about 54% of its average volume from April to July. That’s when the river usually swells with snowmelt from the Rockies and other ranges, but precipitation this winter has been well below normal across the region. There’s still plenty of time for conditions to improve. The river basin tends to accumulate much of its snowpack in January, February and March. Lake Mead ended 2017 almost 2 feet higher than a year ago, as use of Colorado River water by Nevada, Arizona and California hit its lowest level since 1992. The lake can use all the help it can get. Its surface has dropped more than 130 feet since drought started in 2000. Projections for the lake are almost certain to get worse.
