http://www.BirdWatchingDaily.com 37California’s largest lake, is an intriguing
migratory stopover that shows a
different facade with each season. At
least until the last few years. The sea’s
ecology has declined rapidly since 2016,
threatening fish and bird populations.
But first, let’s look back to better times,
to see how we arrived at the situation
the sea faces today.
My first visit to the sea, located in the
Colorado Desert in the southern part of
the Golden State, on a crisp mid-
February day in 2010, was an eye-
opener. A thousand Eared Grebes
bobbed and dove in the water, and large
f locks of American White Pelicans
skimmed the surface in search of fish.
The clear water sparkled in the bright
winter sunlight, and the sea looked
vibrant and alive. Showing its best side,
it seemed pristine. It was difficult to see
how this body of water had garnered
such a tarnished image over the years.
Could it really be so foul?
A later quest for Yellow-footed Gulls
in mid-August, however, was a different
story. It only took a few moments in the
110-degree heat and 75 percent humidly
for sweat to pour down my face. As I
scanned the shore near Salton City, the
smell of rotting fish strewn about the
sand was overpowering. Several gulls
lazily picked at the carcasses in the
bright sunlight. Yellow-footed Gull and
other target birds were easy to find that
day. A carload of British birders joined
me along the edge of the water and
marveled at the rich birdlife on the sea’s
surface. “Too bad that the sea is dying,”
one said to his fellow twitchers.
The smell of the summer sea is but
one symptom of the many difficulties
that have plagued this important
migratory site along the Pacific Flyway
for many years. The Salton Sea has
earned a blemished reputation because
of its summertime odors, fish- and
bird-kills, and fouled inf lows from the
New River at its southernmost point. But
the sea remains an important stoppingpoint for migratory birds as they follow
the inland valley and desert to and from
Central and South America.
The sea’s importance to migratory
birds grew as California’s landscape and
wetlands rapidly changed into intensely
irrigated and fertilized fields, shopping
malls, and gated retirement
communities. It’s estimated that as
much as 95 percent of the state’s
wetlands have been lost to farmland and
urban sprawl. What’s left in central
California is a thin chain of national,
state, and private wildlife refuges that
stretches along the valley into the desert
like a dark green necklace: Gray Lodge,
Sacramento, Colusa, Sutter, San Luis,
Merced, Kern, and the Salton Sea. These
tiny islands in an ocean of agriculture
and urban development support more
than 550 species of birds, animals, and
plants. During the winter, nearly
2 million waterfowl stay on valley
preserves along the Pacific Flyway.
The dependence of birdlife on the
sea has been demonstrated clearly. Over
400 species of birds are found at the sea,
second only to the Texas Gulf Coast in
the sheer number of visiting and
resident species. The sea and its
surrounding fields provide winter
habitat for more than 450,000 ducks
and 30,000 Ross’s and Snow Geese.
Roughly 30 percent of American White
Pelican and 50 percent of California
Brown Pelican populations were once
found at the sea, and the wintering
population of gulls was the largest at
any inland site in North America.
Gulls, shorebirds, and waterfowl
found the ecosystem of the sea
irresistible because of its huge supply of
fish and the unique gruel of algae,
grasses, and aquatic worms that sustain
the fishery. The sea’s fishery has been
called one of the most productive in the
world, one that promotes the growth of
several introduced fish species: tilapia,
gulf croaker, orangemouth corvina,
and sargo. A sport-fishing industry
around the sea benignly coexisted withthe birds.
The sea is truly a unique ecosystem
in the southwest desert, one that is a
blessing and a curse to its inhabitants.
It both nourishes and puts them at
risk, and attention-grabbing headlines
have publicized numerous bird- and
fish-kills over the years. While the
fish-kills have increased during the
last decade, bird deaths have received
more attention.
In 1992, 150,000 Eared Grebes and
Ruddy Ducks were found dead along the
shoreline. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service was about to take Brown
Pelicans off the endangered species list
until 1,400 died in 1996, nearly one-
third of California’s population. The
species again suffered the loss of 413
birds in 2000.
In 2018, an avian cholera outbreak
killed 6,000 Ruddy Ducks, as well as a
large number of Black-necked Stilts and
gulls, and this past winter another
outbreak claimed Ruddy Ducks,
Northern Shovelers, stilts, and gulls. In
most cases, the cause of death appeared
to have been viral or bacterial infection.
Bird and fish populations are dependent
on the relative health of this bowl filled
with a mix of salt, decomposing
vegetation, and agricultural runoff.NO OUTLET
The Salton Sea, lying along the western
edge of San Andreas Fault, is essentially
a basin with no outlet. Its size and shape
have changed as the Colorado River’s
course was altered by silt and storms
over the eons. At times, it has been
directly fed by the Colorado or
composed the northernmost reach of the
Gulf of California. Early native cultures
thrived and farmed the seashores.
The sea we know today was created
in 1905 when poorly constructed
irrigation canal gates burst, and water
gushed for one and a half years onto the
desert. A dike built by railroad cars
dumping huge boulders onto the
Kev rushing waters finally stopped the
in^ K
ey/
Shu
tter
sto
ck
,