delta smelt

(Newser) - California is embroiled in a water crisis that's right out of Chinatown. In the midst of a devastating drought, state officials cut off water to thousands of acres of Central Valley farmland—in part to protect smelt fish from swimming into pumps and going extinct. Not surprisingly, farmers and...

(Newser) - When you’re an endangered species jockeying for federal funding, good looks are historically a plus. That may be changing, the Washington Post reports. In the past, researchers note, “there has been a very heavy bias toward ‘charismatic megafauna’—relatively large, well-known birds and mammals.” But...

(Newser) - The Endangered Species Act , enacted in 1973 to protect the likes of the bald eagle and the California grizzly, is in desperate need of overhaul, the Economist argues. The act’s latest ravagement is the protection of the delta smelt, a three-inch fish a judge deemed important enough late last...