While the plight of wild salmon is often the subject of great debate and policy fights, the challenges Salmon River steelhead face are less well known, though equally formidable. [...]

Some 186 million acres of sagebrush grassland unfold across 11 states. This is the Sagebrush Sea, home to 350 wildlife species, including mule deer, elk, pronghorn, and golden eagles. Perhaps the showiest of all creatures scraping out a life in this harsh environment is the greater sage grouse. [...]

In the West, battles over water tend to get framed in terms of big abstract entities—municipalities, hydropower companies, agricultural conglomerates—wrestling over equally abstract terms. However, underlying and informing all of those arguments is a fact much more visceral: Water is the most primal of substances on earth. [...]