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Preliminary survey shows Great Salt Lake hosts large shorebird counts even as multi-decade declines appear across the Intermountain West
Summary
Researchers presented preliminary counts showing hundreds of thousands of shorebirds use Great Salt Lake and the Intermountain West but reported steep declines versus surveys from 30 years ago; analyses tying declines to surface-water changes and other drivers are under way.
At a recent meeting of the Utah Great Salt Lake Advisory Council tech team, researchers summarized preliminary results from an Intermountain West migratory shorebird survey and a Utah-focused analysis that together highlight the Great Salt Lake's outsized role in regional shorebird migration and troubling long-term declines.
The survey team, led in part by Em Clark and Max Monkquist from Audubon and partners, said the August survey window yielded substantial counts in Utah. "We had almost a quarter of 1000000 shorebirds counted across Utah," Clark said, reporting the season included about 25 shorebird species. The presenters gave species-level tallies, including about 125,000 American avocets (roughly 14% of the Utah total), about 39,000 Wilson's phalaropes (about 14%), and about 36,000 red-necked phalaropes (about…
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