Watershed Symposium 2018

The Great Reduction: How We Can Save the “Polar Bears” of the GSL

The Great Salt Lake is home to the world’s second largest white pelican rookery, where these charismatic “polar bears” of the Lake face a crisis as lake levels drop. These peli-canaries in the coalmine face a cascade of impacts, but water conservation is being ignored as a viable solution to keep water flowing to the Lake, and time is running out.

Full Abstract
The Great Salt Lake has been called America’s Serengeti for birds. The Lake’s unprecedented diversity of habitats are vital for 8-10 million individual migratory birds with many species gathering at the Lake in larger populations than anywhere else on the planet. According to biologists the Lake is less than half its average volume. Upstream water diversions are a big part of this decline, as are increased air temperatures, which reduce snowpack and annual runoff patterns. A massive new proposed diversion of the Lake’s largest water source, the Bear River, would exacerbate these problems. It’s clear that humans are pushing the Lake closer and closer to disaster. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the secluded outpost of Gunnison Island, which hosts the world’s second largest white pelican rookery, with an average of 11,000 birds and 5,000 nests. These charismatic “polar bears” of the Great Salt Lake face a crisis as lake levels drop, and the birds’ island refuge where they raise their chicks becomes accessible. Recently Lake levels dropped low enough that the island was no longer surrounded by water allowing coyotes, humans and other predators to use the land bridge to invade this pelican sanctuary. These pelicans are the canaries in the coalmine; because as lake levels drop there will be a cascade of impacts on the ecosystem from the increased salinity, land bridges, and different invertebrate assemblage. Water conservation is largely being ignored as a viable solution to the Lake’s woes. Because urban Utahns use more water per-person than nearly everybody in the U.S., significant reductions in water use could put Utah on path to a sustainable water future and save the Lake from disaster. If Wasatch Front residents simply reduced their water use to that of scores of other western U.S. communities, it would require less water to be diverted out of the rivers that feed the Great Salt Lake. The solution is simple and obtainable, but time is running out.