Minnow Returns & Unprecedented Drought

It's not the rescue from Gilligan's Island but another minnow that has made a dramatic comeback even the Professor would be proud of. The Oregon chub has made a remarkable comeback and has been formally removed from Endangered Species Act because it is no longer in danger of extinction. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe made the announcement Tuesday afternoon at a wildlife refuge outside Corvallis.The Oregon chub was originally listed 22 years ago.

We all know that drought conditions are prevalent all across the west and have been for years. A new NASA study is not giving a lot of hope to those farmers, ranchers and more hoping for a reprieve. Benjamin Cook at NASA GISS says they have been using historical data to generate simulations that give a dire outlook.

COOK: These droughts really represent events that nobody in the history of the United States has ever had to deal with and so even in the modern era droughts such as the on-going droughts in California and in the southwest - these normal droughts act as major stresses on water resources in the region so we expect that with these much longer droughts it's going to be even more impactful and cause even more problems for agriculture and ecosystems in the region.

The study add though that if we follow the path to cut carbon pollution, we significantly reduce the risks of disruptive climate change.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.