Western scrub jay | Photo: Matt Knoth/Flickr/Creative Commons License

Fire is hard on the desert. Many desert plants, the Joshua tree among them, don't recover quickly from burns. But as more time elapses since one catastrophic wildfire in the California desert, the scorched landscape it left behind may just be doing something like recovering... with some important help.

Mohave tui chub | China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station Photo

You might find the notion that Southern California's Mojave River has a native fish a bit surprising. After all, for most of its 110-mile run from the San Bernardino Mountains out to Baker the riverbed is dry as a bone, its water flowing underground if at all. It hardly seems the kind of place where a fish would do well, and so the existence of the Mohave tui chub — the Mojave River's only native fish — is a bit counterintuitive.

The fact that the Mohave tui chub is on the Endangered Species list, however, isn't even a little surprising. Really, it's only by complete fluke that it isn't extinct.

Look at the websites of major environmental organizations and you might be persuaded that climate change is the only real environmental issue we face. A majority of American environmentalists have adopted climate change as their main cause, and it's easy to understand why: when scientists agree that our planet is likely to be 5° to 10° F hotter by year 2100, that'll get your attention.

Climate change is a serious issue, but a couple of recent studies remind us that it may not be the biggest threat to life on Earth as we know it. It may in fact be essentially a symptom of a broader problem, one which hasn't gotten nearly as much attention from either green groups or the environmentally oriented press. What's the issue? Loss of biodiversity, also known as extinction. And ignoring it to focus on climate change can have dire consequences, especially in the desert.

Wind, water, wildlife

Ocotillo wind, Nevada fires, Vegas pipeline

Bats, sage grouse, solar and wind

Lots of energy and wildlife news

More Ivanpah solar, military training facility spiked, Valley of Fire State Park

Bighorn sheep, Gila monsters, and sand dunes lizards

Sage grouse; invasive snails; Las Vegas Wash news