Скачать или смотреть Ghost of the playa: As students count an elusive bird, they find science research is also endangered

This summer, Weber State University researchers and a team of volunteers took on an ambitious chore — re-counting the flocks of snowy plovers nesting on the shrinking Great Salt Lake’s shores.

It’s not an easy task. The birds are called the “ghost of the playa” for a reason. They evolved to blend in with their salty surroundings.

Snowy plovers also nest directly on the ground, making them vulnerable to predators, people and motor vehicles. They’re listed as a threatened species along the Pacific Coast. But a Weber-led survey in 2008 found that at the Great Salt Lake, snowies were thriving. It had the largest snowy plover population in North America.

All these years later, Utah wildlife managers want to know whether those conditions changed. The lake, after all, is about half the size it was back then. And much of the plover’s prime habitat has been overrun with water-guzzling invasive phragmites. Students, meanwhile, are seizing on an opportunity to gain valuable experience in the field and bolster their resumes, even as they worry about dwindling career prospects in conservation due to changing politics in Washington, D.C.

The state in April gave Weber’s Avian Ecology Lab $55,000 to repeat their 2008 survey. This time, the researchers had a lot more constraints, with half the budget and fewer paid staff. They only had a two-week window to plan before the birds flew in and started preparing their nests.

Reporting by Leia Larsen
Video by Francisco Kjolseth
The Salt Lake Tribune