Arizona
Arizona’s Biosphere 2 is now home to endangered Sonoyta pupfish
Endangered Sonoyta pupfish finds home at Arizona’s Biosphere 2
Peter Reinthal talks about introducing a population of the endangered Sonoyta pupfish into a desert spring habitat at Biosphere 2.
ORACLE, AZ — Four dozen Sonoyta pupfish are now swimming beneath the towering glass pyramids of the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 after a multi-year effort to conserve the critically endangered species.
The rare desert fish were introduced into a newly constructed desert stream habitat at the research facility on Oct. 24, welcomed by a cheering crowd of university students, biologists and self-proclaimed fish lovers.
“Biosphere 2 is a theater of all possibilities,” said Joaquin Ruiz, director of the facility. “In addition to what we do to try to understand how ecosystems operate, we’re also going to be the safe harbor of a species that is endangered.”
The release is a collaboration between the University of Arizona, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and the Arizona Game and Fish Department.
Measuring about two inches long, the small blue-green and brown-striped fish are also called Quitobaquito pupfish because they can only be found in the wild at Quitobaquito Springs, a small, spring-fed oasis in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Whenever I talk about pupfish in my class, I know they’re really easy to identify. They’re very cute. They’re called pupfish because they look like little puppy dogs,” said University of Arizona associate professor Peter Reinthal, who originated the idea for the pupfish introduction.
A new use for a storied structure
After teaching a hands-on portion of his class on ichthyology (the study of fish) inside Biosphere 2, Reinthal wrote a grant through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Desert Fish Habitat Partnership to fund the construction of the stream inside a giant habitat once intended for humans.
Biosphere 2 — named after the planet Earth, the original biosphere — was built in the late 1980s by Space Biospheres Ventures, a private company with a goal of creating an entirely self-sustaining Earth ecosystem beneath the glass walls. In the 1990s, the facility gained national attention when researchers were locked inside Biosphere 2 for two years to simulate a futuristic space colony. The first two “missions” failed and the structure evolved into a science laboratory.
The University of Arizona gained ownership of the property in 2011 and now operates the facility as an Earth Systems Research Center and tourist destination.
State and federal agencies collaborated with the university and drafted a Safe Harbor Agreement, a voluntary agreement that allows individuals and organizations to keep populations of endangered species and contribute to their recovery.
The introduced pupfish are a part of a backup population meant to safeguard the species from extinction if the wild population declines.
The entire project took about two years of planning and implementation.
“I’ve been a scientist all my life and every project I ever do it’s to collect data or produce papers. This is the first one we did where we actually built something physical,” said Reinthal. “I really, really enjoyed that.”
Habitat loss drives population declines in hardy desert fish
Behind their “cute” faces and chubby bodies, the Sonoyta pupfish are survivors.
Adapted to live in extreme environments, the pupfish are capable of surviving drastic temperature changes, a range of pH levels and low-oxygen water.
“They can survive in 110-degree water, which is wild. And they can handle a lot of salinity,” said Brett Montgomery, topminnow and pupfish specialist with the Arizona Game and Fish Department. “They can exist in springs and streams with all those things that you wouldn’t think would allow fish to survive.”
Despite their hardy nature, the primary threat to the pupfish species has been habitat loss.
The Sonoyta pupfish were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1986, and today, their total population is about 2,000.
The species was once found south of the border in the Rio Sonoyta, but since groundwater pumping has depleted the river, there has been no observable population in the watershed.
“A good number of animal species rely on streams like this in the natural world, and they’re valuable places to a large diversity of species, both plants and animals. We need to take care of them,” said Jason Deleeuw, terrestrial biome manager at Biosphere 2.
Habitat is also an educational tool
Deleeuw constructed the desert stream with a local construction company and help from student workers. The stream features several pools to hold the endangered fish and includes native vegetation to emulate their disappearing natural environment.
About 34,000 fish species are expected to go extinct in the next 25-50 years, according to Reinthal. A recent study co-authored by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature found that 26% of all freshwater fish species were at high risk of extinction.
Reinthal hopes the population of endangered fish will serve as an educational resource for both university classes and for those visiting Biosphere 2 as a tourist destination.
“It’s a great outreach tool,” said Reinthal. “Biosphere 2 gets about 80,000 visitors a year here, so the public can learn about fish.”
As pupfish settled into their new home right away, establishing territory and chasing each other in circles, the biologists are already planning for future introductions.
Montgomery said he hopes to introduce additional Sonoyta pupfish once the government shutdown ends, and after the pupfish are acclimated, the team plans to introduce the endangered Gila topminnow to the Biosphere 2’s desert stream habitat.
“They make people happy,” said Reinthal. “And I tell my class, if you don’t like pupfish, it means you’re a mean person.”
John Leos covers environmental issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to john.leos@arizonarepublic.com.
Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
Follow The Republic environmental reporting team at environment.azcentral.com and @azcenvironment on Facebook and Instagram.
The Arizona man known as the “QAnon Shaman” said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s new Anti-Weaponization Fund is an abuse of power by a would-be “king.”
Jacob Angeli-Chansley – the face of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot with his red, white and blue face paint and horned fur headdress – denounced the $1.776 billion program as a “slush fund” for Trump to reward his loyalists.
The Justice Department announced the fund on Monday as part of a settlement with Trump, who had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. The settlement included an assurance that the IRS will drop all audits and claims for back taxes against Trump, his family and businesses.
“You think I’m gonna take a f—ing dime from Trump and the government after he’s using this thing to cover him and his family in perpetuity for all of their crimes?” he told Cronkite News by phone. “You think I’m gonna take a dime of that blood money?”
Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6 riot the day he returned to the White House in January 2025. Many had been convicted of assaulting police officers.
Cronkite News reached out to 17 of those defendants with Arizona ties. None besides Angeli-Chansley responded.
Thirteen were convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes related to the attack. Four of the cases were dismissed after the pardon. The charges included assault on federal agents, physical violence at the Capitol and seditious conspiracy.
See our previous coverage of the Anti-Weaponization Fund and “QAnon Shaman” in the video player above.
Angeli-Chansley pleaded guilty to a charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. He served 27 months of a 41-month sentence. He was released from federal prison in March 2023.
During the riot, he carried an American flag fastened to a spear and used a bullhorn to call other rioters to the dais in the Senate chamber.
“He stated that ‘Mike Pence is a f—-ing traitor’ and wrote a note on available paper on the dais, stating, ‘It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming,’” according to prosecutors.
At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the compensation fund, saying it will be open to anyone victimized by a politically motivated prosecution, not just Jan. 6 defendants.
“It’s not limited to Republicans. … It’s not limited to the Biden weaponization. It’s not limited to, in any way scope or form, January 6 or to (targets of special counsel) Jack Smith. There’s no limitation on the claims,” Blanche said.
He rejected Democrats’ assertions that the fund is a massive, taxpayer-funded attempt by Trump to whitewash the assault on democracy.
“I think it’s telling that everybody on the left and … the liberal side of the media immediately says it’s a slush fund for President Trump’s friends,” Blanche said. “If anything else, that’s an outright admission that they know that the people that really had this Department of Justice weaponized against them were President Trump and his friends. But … that is not what the AG order that I signed yesterday says.”
Blanche, who served as Trump’s private attorney in several cases – prosecutions over election interference and classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and allegations of hush money paid to an adult actress ahead of the 2016 election – faced strong criticism from Senate Democrats.
“You are acting today like the president’s personal attorney and that’s the whole problem,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who also noted that a huge banner with Trump’s portrait was draped over the front of the Department of Justice building in February.
At a homeland security committee meeting Tuesday, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego called for legislation barring establishment of a fund of the sort proposed by the Trump administration.
He called it outrageous to provide compensation to “traitors who attacked the Capitol.”
“No president, Republican or Democrat, should be able to use the federal treasury as a personal checkbook,” he said.
Angeli-Chansley now refers to himself as the “American Shaman.” He was heavily involved in the QAnon movement, which centered on a conspiracy theory that Trump was fighting a cabal of Satan worshippers who engage in child sex trafficking.
He was a strong MAGA supporter when the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, interrupting congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Angeli-Chansley has since become disenchanted with Trump. He has also repudiated the QAnon movement.
In a rambling phone conversation with Cronkite News, he repeatedly cited Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting federal trial for trafficking young women and girls for sex.
He reiterated his anger with Trump for resisting the release of the Epstein files.
And he criticized Trump for attacking Iran and supporting Israel, among other things.
Angeli-Chansley sued Trump for $40 trillion in September 2025, asserting he is the true leader of the free world and vowing to use the sum to wipe out the national debt. The lawsuit was dismissed. He later filed a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI, World Bank and others in Maricopa County.
He urged fellow Jan. 6ers to “reject that … money.”
If courts allow the fund to operate, Angeli-Chansley said, it would mean that Trump “can do whatever it is that he wants.”
Teacher unions call for board member’s resignation after ‘Nazi salute’
Teacher unions call for District Boardmember Kimberly Fisher’s resignation after she made a “Nazi salute” during a public meeting on May 26, 2026.
Provided by Deer Valley Unified School District
School teacher unions are calling for the resignation of a Deer Valley Unified School District board member after she made a “Nazi salute” and said “heil’ at the end of a public meeting on May 26.
Boardmember Kimberly Fisher stretched out her arm, making the salute motion and repeating the word “heil” twice after the board president called for a vote to adjourn the meeting.
Fisher defended her actions in a Facebook video after the meeting, stating she made the gesture because she felt that the board had been under a “dictatorship” led by Board President Paul Carver and the district’s superintendent.
“All I could think of tonight was Hitler, so that’s why I said heil or whatever,” Fisher said in an eight-minute-long video.
Prior to the motion, Fisher and the board members were speaking on scheduling future meetings to discuss changes to district boundaries. Superintendent Curtis Finch stated they could not discuss the topic because it was on the meeting’s agenda. Then Carver quickly called for a vote to end the meeting, which prompted Fisher to make the salute.
The board members did not immediately react or acknowledge Fisher’s salute at the May 26 meeting.
This was not the first time Fisher has recently come under scrutiny. In October, she was slammed with a violation of Open Meeting Law by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, The Daily Independent reported.
Fisher could not be immediately reached for comment.
How the community is reacting to Fisher’s Nazi salute
The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization focused on advocating against antisemitism and hate, denounced Fisher’s use of the salute.
“We unequivocally condemn this behavior that glorifies Nazis and Hitler. Regardless of intent, these actions instill fear in the community and are unbecoming of officials entrusted with educating children,” said Sarah Kader, the deputy regional director of ADL Desert, in a social media post.
The Arizona Education Association and the Deer Valley Education Association are calling for Fisher’s resignation.
“Kimberly Fisher should apologize to the DVUSD community and step down,” the state union group wrote on X.
The local teacher union wrote in a Facebook statement that they were “horrified and disgusted” to see Fisher’s actions.
“Any leader who uses a Nazi salute during a School Board meeting is unfit for public service. There is no justification for this behavior,” the union wrote.
Boardmember Stephanie Simacek, in a statement, said “this is what antisemitism looks like when people get comfortable” and called for an “immediate censure.”
“I am calling for accountability. And I am calling on every parent, educator, and elected official Republican or Democrat — to stand up and say clearly: THIS HAS NO PLACE HERE,” she wrote in the statement.
Simacek is also a house member in the Arizona State Legislature and is running for a state senate seat.
She wrote, “What happened in that room was not a joke.”
The school district “does not condone, support, or endorse gestures or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation, or violence in any form,” said Kayla Pologa, a spokesperson for Deer Valley, in a written statement.
“As an elected official, Mrs. Fisher speaks and acts independently,” Pologa wrote.
She said Fisher’s views don’t reflect nor should be attributed to other board members or members of the school district.
Who is Kimberly Fisher?
Fisher has been a Deer Valley School District parent for 24 years, according to her biography on the district’s website. She had two children graduate from the district and her third is being homeschooled in his final year, her biography states.
She had previously served on the board from 2015 to 2018.
In 2017, Fisher was the school board president and was criticized for a social media exchange with a teacher.
She was reelected in 2020. Fisher’s current term ends in 2028.
Former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, the Republican candidate for Congressional District 5, is facing new criticism following a recent report published by The Arizona Republic.
What we know:
The article cites unidentified sources who allege Lamb engaged in racist and homophobic text exchanges and sent inappropriate and threatening messages to women.
There are a few things working in Lamb’s favor, which are his name recognition combined with an endorsement from President Donald Trump.
Big picture view:
Analysts said it ultimately comes down to what voters decide at the ballot box.
“People have weathered worse,” Stan Barnes said.
Barnes is a political consultant and former Republican state senator. He points to other figures, like former President Bill Clinton and current President Trump, who both faced high-profile misconduct allegations.
“The American people said, all right, but we still want to vote for him, and Mark Lamb could be in the same situation,” Barnes said.
What they’re saying:
Lamb has largely kept quiet on the issue, a strategy Barnes said can work for candidates.
“He might decide, you know what? It’s salacious, it’s unprovable,” Barnes said. “A lot of people won’t believe it, people aren’t paying attention, and name ID and Trump endorsement’s going to carry me through.”
Inquiries were made to Lamb’s campaign. They responded with a statement, saying in part: “The Arizona Republic admitted that their article was based on a 10-year-old text from a person that couldn’t be located, or might not be a real person. Not exactly what one would call quality, independent journalism.”
However, the allegations could present challenges for his path to Congress.
The other side:
“The problem for Mr. Lamb and his candidacy is that his opponent will attempt to remind voters,” Barnes said.
Lamb’s Republican opponent, Daniel Keenan, spoke out against the former sheriff following the report.
“This story only adds to a pattern of disqualifying, disgraceful, and embarrassing behavior unbecoming of a congressman,” Keenan said in part.
Dig deeper:
Noble, a political data researcher, said the accusations could hurt Lamb with moderate voters.
“There’s really no strong candidates running in that primary because he’s cleared the field,” Mike Noble said. “It’s going to hurt him with women, it’s going to hurt him with independents, self-identified moderates, those that have a high school or less education.”
In a heavily Republican district, Noble said if the accusations gain traction, it could help the opposing party.
“It could potentially be fatal for him in the general election and actually give Democrats an opening in the general election, which normally they wouldn’t,” Noble said.
What’s next:
On the Democratic side, there are four people running in the primary for Congressional District 5. The primary election is scheduled for July 21.
The Source: This information was gathered from the article from The Arizona Republic, a political consultant and Lamb’s campaign.
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