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What biologists see from the shores of the drying Great Salt Lake
Scientists Carly Biedul, Bonnie Baxter and Heidi Hoven look for migratory birds on the eerily dry south shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
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Scientists Carly Biedul, Bonnie Baxter and Heidi Hoven look for migratory birds on the eerily dry south shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Drive west of this sprawling high desert city, past its newly built international airport, through a series of locked gates into the Audubon’s Gillmor Sanctuary and it’s like entering another world.
Or maybe better put, an other worldly landscape: the vast, and drying wetlands along the Great Salt Lake, the largest saline lake left in the western hemisphere, some fifty miles long and thirty wide.
“It’s quite an adventure to get out here,” says Carly Biedul, a wildlife biologist at nearby Westminster University. She’s part of a team of scientists who have been tracking the lake’s decline amid the West’s record megadrought made worse by climate change. They’ve been conducting weekly trips to various sampling and study sites for the last several years at the remote lake that only recently started making international headlines due to its sharp decline.
Even since its water levels peaked in the 1980s, the Great Salt Lake has always had this mysterious vibe. It’s shallow and boggy. It can stink, especially in the heat of summer.
But zero in right here at this private sanctuary – where steady water still flows in due to a complex web of agreements – and it soon becomes clear how alive this ecosystem can be and how hugely important of a stopover it is for migratory birds.
Wetlands ecologist Heidi Hoven looks for shorebirds at the Gillmor Sanctuary, which she helps manage.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
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Wetlands ecologist Heidi Hoven looks for shorebirds at the Gillmor Sanctuary, which she helps manage.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
Water diversions by farmers and Utah’s booming population are seen as some of the biggest culprits behind the Great Salt Lake’s decline.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
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Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
Water diversions by farmers and Utah’s booming population are seen as some of the biggest culprits behind the Great Salt Lake’s decline.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
Despite recent moisture, the lake is still shrinking
2023 brought record snow to Utah, and a healthy spillover of runoff into the imperiled lake. Scientists warn the lake has already shrunk nearly in half from its historical average.
“It’s because of so many years of drought and climate change and water diversions, and we can’t keep going like that,” says Bonnie Baxter, director of the Great Salt Lake Institute.
But she says there’s still time to reverse its decline. The last two years has bought the state some time. Researchers here are already detecting sharp declines in shorebird populations such as burrowing owls and snowy plovers. As the lake and its wetlands dry, the brine shrimp the birds feed on are dying out.
“For these birds that queue into these saline habitats, there are fewer places for them to go,” says Heidi Hoven, a wetlands ecologist who helps manage the Gillmor. “All the saline lakes here in the West, and many in the world, are experiencing this loss of water and in essence that relates to a loss in habitat.”
Left: the Great Salt Lake is an important stopover for scores of migratory shorebirds. Right: as the lake dries, predators like coyotes are appearing in areas that used to be underwater.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
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Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
There are plenty of culprits behind the lake drying up
Scientists say the West is believed to be as dry as it’s been in 1200 years. The megadrought made worse by climate change has been contributing to the Great Salt Lake’s decline. But agriculture usually bears the bulk of the blame. Upstream water diversions for expanding alfalfa farms and dairies has meant less and less flows into the lake. Utah’s population is also booming. Hoven says development is now running right up to the sanctuary.
“You can actually see it over your shoulder,” she gestures. “It’s this advancement of large, distribution warehouses that are within a mile from the sanctuary now where it used to be open land.”
A short, bumpy ride later along a rutted out dirt track, Hoven pulls to a stop at a favorite vista. The setting sun is casting an eerie orange glow over the distant mountains that ring the dry lake bed. It stretches for miles with just a few pools of water here or there.
Scientists Heidi Hoven, Senior Manager at the Gillmor Sanctuary and Audubon Rockies and Bonnie Baxter, Director at The Great Salt Lake Institute, look for small flies at a bird sanctuary where many species of birds are affected by the recession of The Great Salt Lake.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
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Scientists Heidi Hoven, Senior Manager at the Gillmor Sanctuary and Audubon Rockies and Bonnie Baxter, Director at The Great Salt Lake Institute, look for small flies at a bird sanctuary where many species of birds are affected by the recession of The Great Salt Lake.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
Wetlands ecologist Heidi Hoven looks for small flies at a bird sanctuary where many species are in decline due to the alarming drying of the Great Salt Lake.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
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Wetlands ecologist Heidi Hoven looks for small flies at a bird sanctuary where many species are in decline due to the alarming drying of the Great Salt Lake.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
It’s beautiful but also eerie, even for the trained eye of wildlife biologists like Biedul, who make weekly research trips to the lake.
“Otherworldly is a great word,” she says. “It’s crazy. We’re at Great Salt Lake right now but there’s no water. The other places where I go and sample there’s water there at least. But here we’re still at the lake and it’s dry.”
Hoven chimes in, solemnly.
“It’s just so shocking, and you know, it’s a shock to me every time I see it,” she says. “But to see someone view it for the first time. You can really see them taking it in. You never thought you could see this dryness.”
The state is being galvanized into action
But all this shock and alarm, the scientists say, may be good. It’s pressuring state leaders into action. Utah Governor Spencer Cox has pledged the lake won’t dry up on his watch. The state legislature has put upwards of a billion dollars lately into water conservation programs, most geared to farmers.
“For generations the lake was seen as kind of this dead thing that just happens to be there and will always be there,” Cox told NPR recently. “And now that people are realizing there’s a potential that it might not always be here, that’s gotten people’s attention in a positive way.”
Wildlife biologist Carly Biedul of the Great Salt Lake Institute closes the last of many gates to the protected Gillmor Sanctuary along the south shores of the Great Salt Lake.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
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Wildlife biologist Carly Biedul of the Great Salt Lake Institute closes the last of many gates to the protected Gillmor Sanctuary along the south shores of the Great Salt Lake.
Lindsay D’Addato for NPR
Everything from lake effect snow for the lucrative ski industry, to mining, to air quality depends on the lake’s survival. Recent publicity around the crisis has raised public awareness but also started to bring more money which could lead to more comprehensive research that could inform everything from strategic action plans to save the lake to just understanding how the remaining migratory birds are coping.
Heidi Hoven, the wetlands ecologist, sees the shorebirds as a key indicator species.
“We have so much more to understand about what their needs are,” she says. “In these changing times, it’s really highlighting the need to understand these things quickly.”
The scientists say the last two winters may have bought Utah a little time, but no one in the West is counting on another good snow year next year.
WILLIAMS & CONNOLLY LLP
Hon. James Comer
Hon. Robert Garcia November 3, 2025 Page 2
compel Attorney General Bondi to release what you have stated is a large trove of unseen files, which the public to date is still waiting to see released.
Your October 22 letter does not provide a persuasive rationale for why deposing the Clintons is required to fulfill the mandate of your investigation, particularly when what little information they have may be efficiently obtained in writing.
You state that your investigation into the “mismanagement” of the Epstein and Maxwell investigations and prosecutions requires the depositions of three individuals: former President Clinton, former Secretary of State Clinton, and former Attorney General William Barr – who was serving in the first Trump Administration when Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in federal custody. Compounding this inexplicable choice of deponents, you also have chosen not to depose the dozens of individuals whose links to Mr. Epstein have been publicly documented.
My clients have been private citizens for the last 24 and 12 years, respectively. President Clinton’s term ended six (6) years before allegations surfaced against Mr. Epstein. Former Secretary of State Clinton’s position was in no way related to law enforcement and is completely afield of any aspect of the Epstein matter. While neither of my clients have anything to offer for the stated purposes of the Committee’s investigation, subpoenaing former Secretary Clinton is on its face both purposeless and harassing. I set forth in my October 6 letter the facts that she did not know Epstein, did not travel with him, and had no dealings with him. Indeed, when I met with your staff to learn your basis for including former Secretary Clinton, none was given beyond wanting to ask if she had ever spoken with her husband about this matter. Setting aside the plainly relevant consideration of marital privilege, this is an entirely pretextual basis for compelling former Secretary Clinton to appear personally in this matter.
It is incumbent on the Committee to address the most basic questions regarding the basis for singling out the Clintons, particularly when there is no obvious or apparent rationale for it, given the mandate of the Committee’s investigation. Your October 22 letter does not provide such a justification. And your previous statements, belied by the facts, that President Clinton is a “prime suspect” (for something) because of visits to Epstein’s island betokens bias, not fairness. You said, on August 11:
“Everybody in America wants to know what went on in Epstein Island, and we’ve all heard reports that Bill Clinton was a frequent visitor there, so he’s a prime suspect to be deposed by the House Oversight Committee.”
“1
Regrettably, such statements are not the words of an impartial and dispassionate factfinder. In fact, President Clinton has never visited Epstein’s island. He has repeatedly stated that, the Secret Service has corroborated that denial, Ghislaine Maxwell’s recent testimony to Deputy Attorney General Blanche reconfirmed this, as did the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre in her
Fields, “Comer: Bill Clinton ‘Prime Suspect’ in Epstein Investigation,” The Hill (Aug. 12, 2025).
A cotton field in north Louisiana.
Dylan Hawkins
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Dylan Hawkins
NEW ORLEANS – James Davis had the best year in his entire farming career this year.
The third-generation Black row crop farmer estimated picking almost 1,300 pounds of cotton, an average of 50 bushels of soybeans, and an average of around 155 bushels of corn on 2,500 acres of his farmland in northeast Louisiana.
But with U.S. commodities facing steep retaliatory tariffs overseas, he says he and many other farmers can’t sell their crops for enough to cover the loans they take out to fund the growing season.
The tariffs, Davis said, are making it almost impossible to survive.
“To have that kind of yield and still not be able to pay all your bills, that tells you something is broken in the farming industry,” Davis said.
In order to plan for next year, farmers need relief now, Davis said. At a recent meeting with his banker, the bank projected 2026 revenues in order to secure crop loans, and the cash flow math wasn’t adding up — the farm’s expected income wasn’t enough to cover operating loans once input costs, equipment notes, land rent and insurance premiums were factored in.
The Trump administration announced just this week a new $12 billion package of one-time bridge payments for American farmers like Davis, aimed at helping them recover from temporary market disruptions and high production costs.
“This relief will provide much needed certainty as they get this year’s harvest to market and look ahead to next year’s crops,” Trump said during a White House roundtable event. “It’ll help them continue their efforts to lower food prices for American families.”
Davis says that type of help can’t come soon enough.
“Without bailouts, it is hard to make crop loans work on paper,” he said in an interview with NPR on Monday.
James Davis asks a question at a panel on farm finances at the National Black Growers Council conference in New Orleans on Dec. 10, 2025. Davis is a third-generation Black row crop farmer who said that despite having the best year he’s ever had in his farming career, he’s still struggling to pay his bills.
Drew Hawkins/Gulf States Newsroom
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Drew Hawkins/Gulf States Newsroom
At the same time, however, the Trump Administration dismantled decades-old USDA programs designed to assist Black farmers by eliminating the “socially disadvantaged” designation, including programs like the 2501 Program, which many Black row-crop farmers rely on for access to credit, technical assistance, and conservation support that are otherwise difficult to secure at county-level USDA offices. The USDA did not respond to requests for interviews or comment.
Those supports, experts said, were designed to help smaller farmers and farmers of color remain on the land.
Welcome relief may not come in time
The Farmer Bridge Assistance Program accounts for up to $11 billion of the newly announced package, and offers proportional payments to farmers growing major commodities, including row crops like soybeans, corn and cotton.
Payments are expected to begin by February of next year, and are designed to offset losses from the 2025 crop year.
For many farmers, that isn’t soon enough. While the bridge payment may help with crop loans, there are immediate bills due for many in the coming weeks.
“This needs to show up like Santa Claus underneath the Christmas tree, to be honest with you,” said PJ Haynie, a fifth-generation Black farmer with rice operations in Virginia and Arkansas and chairman of the National Black Growers Council, which met in New Orleans this week for its annual conference.
“Our landlords want their money by the end of the year — our seed and input and chemical and equipment companies that we have to make payments by the end of the year,” he said.
Some farmers may have relationships with bankers and companies that will work with them and extend payment deadlines a few months, Haynie said — others don’t. And farmers are grateful for any support they receive, but, Haynie said, the one-time bridge payments aren’t enough.
“They still won’t make us whole because of the losses that we’ve incurred because of the markets, the tariffs, the trade,” he said. “But every dollar helps.”
Farmers already face challenges like unpredictable weather, pests and stagnant commodity prices, as well as rising input costs including machinery and fertilizer purchases. “We plant and we pray,” as Haynie put it. Tariffs have only compounded those challenges.
Black farmers face additional challenges
Black farmers like Haynie and Davis make up less than 2% of all U.S. farmers — and Black row-crop farmers, like those at this week’s conference, are an even smaller slice of that.
“Our herd is small,” Haynie said, “and if we can protect the herd, the herd will grow.”
Black farmers have asked the federal government for loan relief and other assistance for decades. A century ago, Black farmers owned at least 16 million acres of land. Today, Haynie said they hold around 2 million.
Following the Civil War, Black Americans were promised “40 acres and a mule” by the federal government, but many say that promise never came to pass.
Over the course of the past 100 years, the amount of Black-owned farmland dropped by 90%, according to Data for Progress, due to higher rates of loan and credit denials, lack of legal and industry support and “outright acts of violence and intimidation.”
Advocates say the inability for Black farmers to get a start, and later the sharp drop in farming population, is in part due to what they call USDA’s discriminatory lending practices, and often specific loan officers’ biases. The agency is the subject of an ongoing discrimination class action lawsuit by Black farmers and additional litigation due to those and other allegations.
Much of that history plays into how Black farmers approach the Trump administration.
“The Black row crop farm community needs the support of the administration,” Haynie said. “I can’t … buy an $800,000 combine to sell $4 corn. The math doesn’t math on that.”
All farmers — “Black or white” — are responding to the same depressed prices, he said. But Black farmers, he argues, already a small percentage of total U.S. growers, and often operating at a smaller scale, have less buffer to absorb sudden market shocks.
As farmers look at their projected costs next year, economists say they’re also navigating deep uncertainty in global markets.
“I think that a lot of farmers are still very much looking at the next year with some trepidation, thinking that their margins will continue to be very, very tight,” said Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington D.C.
U.S. trade with China — historically the top buyer of American soybeans and other row crops — has not rebounded to pre–trade war levels despite a new agreement. Meanwhile, Glauber said, countries like Brazil have expanded production dramatically, seizing market share during the trade war and becoming the world’s top soybean exporter — a long-term structural shift that U.S. growers now have to compete against.
Finis Stribling III (left) and John Green II (right) take a break during the National Black Growers Council conference in New Orleans on Dec. 10, 2025. Both Stribling and Green were plagued by bad weather at the start of this year’s growing season, and both said tariffs have only made things harder.
Drew Hawkins/Gulf States Newsroom
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Drew Hawkins/Gulf States Newsroom
He added that crops grown in the Mississippi River Delta, such as cotton and soybeans, have been hit especially hard by low prices and retaliatory tariffs.
Finis Stribling III farms 800 acres of cotton, rice, corn, soybeans and wheat in Arkansas and Tennessee. At the National Black Growers Council’s conference, he told NPR 2025 was another year of what he calls “farming in deficit.”
“We had too much rain early, then drought,” he said. “And when you finally get a crop in the field, the price support isn’t strong enough to cover the cost of production.”
Sitting next to him during a lunch break at the conference, another Arkansas row crop farmer John Lee II, put it bluntly: “What I’m worried about is next year. What do we do in 2026 when we go to the bank to try and get a loan? I’m concerned about the notion of going to the bank this upcoming year and not being able to get a loan because we can’t make the loan cash flow.”
Both also said the new tariff relief will help — but not nearly to the degree many outside agriculture may think.
“From the outside looking in, non-farm community, you say $12 billion seems like a lot of money,” Stribling said. “But when you look at the cost of production and the money that’s spent in agriculture, $12 billion is really just a drop in the bucket. It’s almost like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.”
More than 400 law enforcement personnel have been deployed as police search for the suspect in a shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island in which two students were killed and nine wounded, US officials said.
The Ivy League university in Providence remained in lockdown early on Sunday, several hours after a suspect with a firearm entered a building where students were taking exams on Saturday. Streets around the campus were packed with emergency vehicles hours after the shooting, and security was heightened around the city as law enforcement agencies continued their manhunt.
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The suspect remained at large, officials said, as police worked with agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to search streets and buildings around the campus to find the individual.
Saturday’s shooting is the second major incident of gun violence on a university campus this week.
Providence deputy police chief Timothy O’Hara said the suspect had not been identified.
Officials said they would release a video of the suspect, a male possibly in his 30s and dressed in black, who O’Hara said may have been wearing a mask. He said officials had retrieved shell casings from the scene of the shooting, but that police were not prepared to release more details of the attack.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley has confirmed that two students were killed and nine people were injured in the attack.
At a news conference, Smiley said university leaders became aware of the shooting at about 4:05pm local time (21:05 GMT), when emergency responders received a 911 call.
Smiley declined to identify the shooting victims, citing the ongoing investigation. However, he sought to reassure the community, despite a shelter-in-place order for the Brown campus and the surrounding neighbourhood.
“We have no reason to believe there are any additional threats at this time,” he said.
The university’s president, Christina Paxton, explained she had been on a flight to Washington, DC, when she learned of the shooting. She immediately returned to Providence to attend a night-time news conference.
“This is a day that we hoped never would come to our community. It is deeply devastating for all of us,” Paxton said in a written statement.
At the news conference, Paxton said she was told the victims were students.
Suspect remains at large
At approximately 4:22pm local time (21:22 GMT), the university issued its first emergency update, warning that there was an armed man near the Barus and Holley engineering and physics building.
“Lock doors, silence phones and stay hidden until further notice,” the university said in its update.
“Remember: RUN, if you are in the affected location, evacuate safely if you can; HIDE, if evacuation is not possible, take cover; FIGHT, as a last resort, take action to protect yourself.”
Upon arriving at the scene, law enforcement swept the building, according to Providence police’s O’Hara.
“They did a systematic search of the building. However, no suspect was located at that time,” O’Hara said.
The university had to withdraw an early announcement that a suspect had been apprehended, writing, “Police do not have a suspect in custody and continue to search for suspect(s).”
US President Donald Trump published a similar retraction on his online platform, Truth Social, after erroneously posting at about 5:44pm (22:44 GMT) that a suspect had been detained.
Mayor Smiley said there were 400 law enforcement officers in the area to search for the suspect.
He also encouraged witnesses to come forward with any information about the shooting.
The seventh-oldest university in the US, Brown is considered part of the prestigious Ivy League, a cluster of private research colleges in the northeast. Its student body numbers 11,005, according to its website.
On December 9, Kentucky State University in the southern city of Frankfort also experienced gunfire on campus, killing one student and leaving a second critically injured.
The suspect in that case was identified as Jacob Lee Bard, the parent of a student at the school.
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