How Is The Salton Sea Affect The Water Life And Animals?
California'south largest lake has long attracted visitors. Many go there yr-round to encounter thousands of birds congregating around the lake and its nearby habitats, but the lake is irresolute and that's changing bird populations.
More 400 different species take been recorded here and estimates put the daily bird population around the sea at more than 100,000.
That's great for bird watchers like Ryan Llamas. The Audubon Gild fellow member's binoculars are pressed tightly confronting his eyes every bit he scans the open up water.
"Yep, so you'd await y'all are going to see a lot of water birds. Information technology's really cool considering I can see correct now a grebe. A western grebe," Llamas said.
The blackness and white birds have long, slender necks, like a swan's, but grebes are much smaller. The fish-eating birds are just 1 pocket-sized sliver of a wide and complex spider web of birds in the region.
PHOTOS: A Look At The Incredible Shrinking Salton Body of water
"The Salton Sea is huge. It is 35 miles long. Then you're not going to see all the same species distributed evenly throughout," Llamas said.
There is bird activity both in the water and along the shore at the Salton Sea Recreation Expanse, on the northeast side of the lake.
The ocean is a pop destination for birds navigating the Pacific flyway considering it has coastal wetland that are difficult to find in California.
"About 95 percentage of (coastal wetlands) have been destroyed you lot know in the proper name of development, farmland, especially in the Key Valley and and so the Salton Sea as an inland wetland is ane of the terminal refuges for shorebirds. You probably can meet hither today the black-necked stilt or the American avocet," Llamas said.
Kris Arciaga
Birds congregate in other habitats effectually Southern California, just there is a richness around the lake that's unmatched in the region.
Llamas does non tire of the bird life that the water attracts.
"There are some ruby ducks," Llamas said as he pointed beyond the water. "Those are the ones that suffered from the dice-off. And then it's kinda cool to see them likewise."
Flocks of birds die at the Salton Bounding main
That duck die-off happened on the southern edge of the lake in January.
Avian cholera decimated ruddy ducks, northern shovelers, black-necked stilts and gulls. The affliction spread quickly because the birds were huddled together looking for fish around a freshwater inlet, the New River.
California Section of Fish and Wild animals
The outbreak was swift and mortiferous. Thousands of bird carcasses ended upward at the Salton Sea National Wild animals Refuge where the bodies could be safely disposed.
"This is our largest incinerator, let me open this up a little bit," said Chris Schoneman, a biologist who works for the U.South. Fish and Wild fauna Service.
A peek inside that incinerator, which is inside a building the size of a single auto garage, reveals bones that weren't completely consumed past fire.
Incinerators were built here because disease has a long history of killing birds in this region.
"This past January it was close to 7,000 birds out there. And to try to get out there and selection 7,000 birds upward i at a time is a huge challenge," Schoneman said.
Burning the carcasses gets the diseased bodies out of the ecosystem, hopefully limiting future outbreaks. However, the fact that there are two incinerators here likewise says something about the changing ecosystem at the Salton Sea.
RELATED: The Shrinking Salton Body of water Endangers Region's Health
"As the sea changes, information technology gets saltier, it affecting the animals that live in the sea. Most dramatically, lately, we've seen a shift in the fish populations," Schoneman said.
Fresh-water tilapia were the lake's well-nigh mutual fish, but they are disappearing every bit table salt builds up in the water.
Erik Anderson
And the changing environment is challenging and changing the bird populations.
In that location are fewer species visiting here. White pelicans used to be mutual, but at present they are a rare sight, as fish-eating birds await for other residue stops.
"The productivity of the Salton Body of water is not what it used to be. The increased salinity has definitely suppressed productivity out on the Salton Ocean," Schoneman said.
The numbers bear that out.
The estimated daily population of birds at the sea hovers around 100,000, and that is one-half to a third of the numbers that used to come here equally recently as a decade or so ago.
Joan McCandless and Carol Olavier spent a contempo morning watching as a burrowing owl huddled in a plastic pipe on the western edge of the lake.
"Isn't he adorable? Oh look, he's actually moving around," McCandless said.
The small footing-nesting bird's populations are falling elsewhere but there are about iv,000 breeding pairs around the sea.
The region rewards persistent birders.
"The closer you look, therefore binoculars, you know the more beautiful they are. And they all accept different personalities likewise, species to species," McCandless said.
And the bird populations say a lot virtually what's going on inside the water.
A smaller and saltier sea will serve fewer bird species, simply the disappearance of fish-eating birds may make room for other birds that eat bugs and worms along the muddy shore.
"Birds are similar fiddling messengers. They're indicators of the health of an ecosystem and in the case of the waterbirds and shorebirds are indicators of the health of the Salton Bounding main," Llamas said.
Change At The Salton Bounding main Is Affecting Bird Populations
Change At The Salton Bounding main Is Affecting Bird Populations
The Salton Ocean continues to be a beacon for birds traveling on the Pacific flyway simply the lake is changing and then are the birds that thrive there. Y'all can hear this story and other local news every morning time past subscribing to San Diego Stories, KPBS' daily news podcast. Subscribe via iTunes, Google Play or your favorite podcatcher.
Source: https://www.kpbs.org/news/midday-edition/2019/03/06/change-salton-sea-affecting-bird-populations
Posted by: alexanderhopil2000.blogspot.com
0 Response to "How Is The Salton Sea Affect The Water Life And Animals?"
Post a Comment