Toward Comprehensive Watershed- Based Restoration and Protection for Great Salt Lake

Unbeknownst to many Utahns, Great Salt Lake is one of the globe's great ecosystems. While some believe that it is virtually devoid of life, in fact it supports immense populations of an impressive diversity of species. Aggregations of waterfowl, shorebirds, and colonial water birds during its spring and fall migrations and its summer staging seasons are among the great wildlife spectacles to be seen anywhere around the world. Because of its extreme conditions, its large periodic fluctuations in size and salinity, and the relatively small diversity at the very base of its food web, however, the ecosystem on which this ecological bounty depends is quite vulnerable to any additional stresses imposed by human activities.