The Brief

Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal. And this season, Tahoe is witnessing its own rebirth in the form of a species of bird that had been previously driven out of the region.

Sandhill cranes are making an unexpected return to the Lake Tahoe basin after a century long hiatus caused by overhunting. The birds stand at about 4 feet tall with a wingspan of 7 feet and boast a signature red patch on their head. The sandhill cranes are often compared to dinosaurs by those lucky enough to witness them due to their large size and loud croaks.

“They actually kind of paint their feathers, which is really rare in the bird world,” said Denys Hemen of the Audubon Center at Debs Park in Los Angeles. “So they'll take the mud and the sand that they get and they'll actually, like, color their feathers with it.”

These majestic birds' newfound presence in Tahoe signifies the latest turn in the species conservation journey, and serves as a testament of its strength and durability.

Sandhill cranes in the Sierra Valley

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Courtesy of Will Richardson

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Tahoe Institute of Natural Sciences

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The effects of overhunting

Tahoe’s montane meadows and wetlands are ideal terrain for sandhill breeding nests, especially with California's record amount of rain over the last few winters potentially increasing the region’s wetlands. But, according to Will Richardson, executive director of the Tahoe Institute of Natural Sciences(TINS), a research, education, and outreach organization, the bird’s main reason for returning to Lake Tahoe is that they are no longer being hunted.

Sandhill cranes were a popular game in the early 1900s and almost completely hunted out of most of California by 1944, with only four to five nesting pairs recorded in the northernmost part of the state, Richardson said.

“There are no records of them breeding in Tahoe, historically, and I think that was probably because they just got hunted out before anybody showed up to take records,” he added.

Other western state populations suffered as well. Sandhill cranes were almost completely rooted out of Washington, and though numbers have been increasing, they remain an endangered species of the state. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife designated sandhill cranes a “species of greatest conservation need” with only about 40 breeding pairs recorded.

Sandhill cranes were still seen wintering in California, mainly in the Central and San Joaquin valleys, but they didn’t return to nesting and breeding in the Sierra Valley for the spring until the 1950s, Richardson said.

And over the last several years, sandhill cranes have been slowly moving more south. In 2015, a few nests were documented near the Truckee River, and in 2018, the first sandhill nest was recorded in Tahoe.

“Their population is rebounding and as a consequence, they're expanding to reclaim old range from centuries ago,” Richardson said. “They're no longer under severe hunting pressures.”

Sandhill cranes are making their return to Lake Tahoe.

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Amy Quinton/Capital Public Radio

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But that doesn’t mean they aren’t still at risk.

Persisting risks threaten recovering population

Sandhill cranes have a long and vulnerable breeding season, according to Richardson. Their eggs incubate for about 30 days, and young sandhills don't learn how to fly until several months after birth.

Although springtime in Tahoe is not peak tourism season, the amount of time sandhills spend in the area to nest and breed makes them more susceptible to interference from potential hikers and visitors.

“If you are canoeing or paddleboarding in a marsh or wetland, and all of a sudden you hear a crane or see a crane stand up, turn around. Back up,” Richardson said. “You don't want to get too close. You don't want to flush them off a nest.”

If spooked, Richardson said these big birds can accidentally roll their eggs or even their young into the surrounding water. Richardson said he believes this is what happened to a sandhill nest in the upper Truckee Marsh last summer that didn’t survive.

Sandhill cranes in a meadow in the Sierra Valley

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Courtesy of Will Richardson

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Tahoe Institute of Natural Sciences

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A story of survival and resilience

Outside of the Lake Tahoe basin, sandhill cranes face habitat loss as the marsh and wetlands they like to roost in have been cleared for farmland.

“Development in wetlands, water being taken from these shallow rivers. All of these things together can cause a great decline in these birds if we're not careful,” said Hemen from the Audubon Center at Debs Park.

Some farmers and ranchers have teamed up with Audubon California’s Working Lands Program and other land managers to reflood these farms during certain points in the year to recreate the marshy wetlands the cranes like to nest in.

“Historically, the main threats to habitat was conversion to farmland or pasture,” Richardson said. “Folks were really aggressive draining wetlands back in the day, and now land managers are very busily trying to right those wrongs and restore old stream flows and make functioning wetlands again.”

But in the Tahoe basin, Richardson said the damage has already been done.

Which is why the story of the sandhill crane coming back to Tahoe is so amazing. Because they have come back just by their own resilience.

For any tourists looking to witness these resilient birds for themselves, Richardson recommended skipping Tahoe and taking a drive a little further north to the Sierra Valley, where the population is more stable and less vulnerable to human disturbance.

“A good first step for us is to just try to let the public know that they can help by not harming,” he said. “If given enough space and left to their own devices, they should be all right.”

The 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Los Angeles are officially two years away, and applications are now open to volunteer at the Games.

Organizers are seeking 60,000 people for roles like providing translation or guiding guests and athletes. They want volunteers for job categories including communications, driving, ceremonies and technology.

The bulk of volunteer positions will be in Los Angeles, with some opportunities in Oklahoma City, which will host a handful of competitions, and the Olympic soccer tournament sites, too.

Volunteering presents a potential way for some locals who balked at high ticket prices to participate in the summer Games, but they're a substantial commitment. Volunteers need to be available for 10 eight-hour shifts during either the Olympics or Paralympics if they want to participate.

A large volunteer program is a regular facet of the Olympics. In 1984, the last time L.A. hosted, nearly 29,000 people volunteered during the event.

To volunteer this time around, applicants need to be at least 18 years old and be proficient in English. Volunteers don't need to be local to Los Angeles or live in the U.S.

The first step is applying through LA28. Selected applicants will then have a chance to be interviewed in person in Los Angeles or online.

This summer's World Cup has been a bonanza for corporate sponsors.

Hydration breaks are "powered by Powerade." Each game crowns a Michelob Ultra "superior player of the match." Even the signs announcing player substitutions have a label slapped on: Rexona deodorant, which is owned by Unilever. They're the "official personal care sponsor" of this World Cup.

This relentless branding is nothing new for major sporting events, but it has provoked outrage in Los Angeles, where protests during the tournament took aim at FIFA's corporate partners, saying they betrayed the city's values.

At a demonstration in downtown L.A. last week, advocates rallied against a number of high-profile sponsors of the tournament, including Home Depot, the official "home improvement retailer" for the 2026 World Cup.

Its signature orange branding has been splashed across tournament activations this summer, but in the L.A. area its parking lots have been the sites of high profile immigration raids. Last summer in Monrovia, a man was killed fleeing ICE activity in a Home Depot parking lot after he ran onto a freeway and was hit by a car. In another incident, federal agents jumped out of a Penske moving van at the Westlake Home Depot and detained 16 people.

" Their parking lots have been turned into hunting grounds," said Miriam Arghandiwal, an organizer with the Boycott Home Depot Coalition.

" FIFA has been intentional in allowing the people's game to become the billionaire's game, and there's no better example of this than its choice in sponsors," she said at the protest.

The group also railed against FIFA partners Hyundai and Kia, citing a 2022 report that suppliers of Hyundai and Kia had used child labor in its Alabama factories. LAist has reached out to Home Depot and the Hyundai Motor Group, which also owns Kia, for comment.

Demonstrators said they wanted FIFA to make corporate accountability a metric of accepting a sponsor.

" We know mega-events like the World Cup can only happen with the support of host communities, local infrastructure and resources, with the workers throughout various supply chains that make these events possible," said Valerie Lizárraga with the nonprofit Jobs to Move America.

The group was also gathered to demand action from the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission, which runs the L.A. World Cup Host Committee. Demonstrators said they were dissatisfied with the committee's guidance on human rights for the World Cup.

A spokesperson for that commission deferred to FIFA for comment on corporate sponsorships. FIFA did not respond to LAist's request.

Last week, a small group of climate activists also demonstrated outside SoFi Stadium against Saudi energy company Aramco, another major FIFA partner. They were calling on FIFA to drop the fossil fuel giant as a sponsor.

The World Cup is wrapped up in Los Angeles after Friday's quarterfinal match between Spain and Belgium. But advocates rallying in L.A. say they are looking toward the future.

" Things like the World Cup [and] the Olympics are events that are fueled by people," said Father Thomas Carey, a member of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. "The question is, do we hold them to account to take care of and protect the people who work for them and the people who attend their games?"

Next year, Los Angeles will host the 2027 Super Bowl. And the year after that will be the Olympics.

The Trump administration is abandoning its most aggressive attempt to end gender-affirming care for youth nationally, according to an official document obtained by NPR.

The document shows that the Department of Health and Human Services will not be finalizing a proposed rule that would have blocked all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told NPR in a statement: "CMS does not comment on future rulemaking or speculate on potential actions. The Trump Administration rejects ideologically driven surgical interventions on vulnerable children."

(Surgery is very rare among transgender people under age 18, and the rule applied to all gender-affirming care, which is mainly therapy and medications for children.)

A "victory" for trans rights, but not a "retreat" by HHS

The fact that the Trump administration is backing off from this action is "a victory for people who are defending the rights and interests of trans people," says Sam Bagenstos, a professor at Michigan Law who served as general counsel at HHS under the Biden administration. "But I don't think it indicates a more general retreat from the aggressive posture of the Trump administration."

Bagenstos notes that this type of leverage — a "conditions of participation" rule for the Medicare and Medicaid program — has historically been used by HHS to compel states and hospitals to meet basic health and safety standards. Things like "making sure that you have stockpiles of certain kinds of equipment, making sure that you have certain kinds of emergency protocols, making sure that you have certain staffing ratios," he explains.

The proposed rule was unprecedented, Bagenstos says, because it instead would have prohibited certain kinds of treatments for a certain population. He says it seemed unlawful in a variety of ways. For one, "it violates the Medicare Act, which says that Medicare and Medicaid can't be used to control the practice of medicine within the state — states get to regulate the practice of medicine," Bagenstos says.

Medical groups opposed the change

Normally, HHS would propose a rule, accept public comment for 60 days, and then finalize the rule so that it could take effect. In this case, after proposing the rule in December and receiving more than 30,000 comments, the administration is abandoning the rule. At least in the next year, it will not be finalized and will not take effect.

The American Medical Association and the Children's Hospital Association both submitted comments urging the agency to rescind or withdraw the proposed rule. Major U.S. medical groups say that puberty blockers and sex hormones are safe and can be effective for transgender young people.

Even so, gender-affirming care for youth is banned in 27 states after a flurry of laws passed over the last several years. In the remaining 23 states, many hospital clinics that offer gender-affirming care have continued to operate, while others have shuttered in the past year citing pressure from the Trump administration.

That pressure has come in the form of this proposed rule, another rule that would bar federal Medicaid reimbursement for transgender pediatric patients, and a declaration from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that aimed to redefine the standard of care. (Interestingly, the press release issued when those actions were unveiled in December is now missing from the HHS website, as is the Kennedy declaration document.)

The Medicaid rule is currently in the final stage of review and appears to be on track to take effect in the coming weeks. A coalition of Democratic-led states sued over the so-called Kennedy declaration and succeeded in blocking it in federal court in Oregon. The Trump administration has not appealed that decision so far.

Protesters who are against gender-affirming care for young people gathered outside Boston Children's Hospital in September 2022.

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Carlin Stiehl for The Boston Globe

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Getty Images

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At the same time, the Department of Justice has issued administrative and criminal subpoenas to hospitals seeking full personal medical files for transgender youth and employment files for their medical providers, although many of those attempts have been blocked in court so far. The Trump administration has also reached settlements with hospitals in Texas and Ohio that involved establishing "detransition" clinics.

And last month, when the Supreme Court allowed states to bar young transgender girls from sports, the White House issued a press release saying that the decision "Bolsters President Trump's Push to Eliminate Transgender Insanity." The release listed actions targeting transgender people across the federal government, from passport markers to military service to research funding.

Will hospitals that ended care for trans youth restart it?

While the Trump administration does not appear to be backing down from anti-transgender actions broadly, its decision not to finalize its most aggressive healthcare rule is significant, says Katie Keith, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown University who also worked in the Biden administration. Those other efforts are not nearly as durable as a finalized rule that takes effect, she notes.

The decision of the Trump administration not to finalize this rule "should give hospitals more confidence to either resume or continue offering the care," she says. Because the rule was never in effect, "I would argue that they should have been doing this all along anyway."

Kellan Baker agrees. He's a senior adviser for health policy at the Movement Advancement Project think tank, which focuses on LGBTQ issues. "This administration may have checked itself in one of the most extreme expressions of its agenda and I think people should take solace in that," he says. "But at the same time, this administration is continuing to show that its ultimate goal is eliminating healthcare for trans people and that it is apparently prepared to use almost any means necessary to do so."

The Medicare and Medicaid rule could theoretically be revived at some point, since it has not been formally withdrawn. An entry in the Trump administration's recent unified agenda sets a final action date for the proposed rule as December 2028, just before President Trump leaves office.

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