Great Salt Lake to launch lawsuit to protect threatened migratory birds

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — The Center for Biological Diversity filed a formal notice today of its intent to sue the Trump administration for failing to determine whether the shorebird Wilson’s phalarope should be protected under the Endangered Species Act.

On Wednesday, Author Terry Tempest Williams and local organizations and community members held a rally to announce the federal lawsuit to protect Wilson’s phalarope, a migratory bird species whose fate is linked to the Great Salt Lake.

“By offering Wilson’s phalaropes legal protection under the law, legislators, politicians and business investors will have to find ways of immediately putting water into Great Salt Lake, not according to their timeline of convenience, but the phalaropes’ radius of critical care,” said Tempest Williams.

Because of the imminent collapse of the Great Salt Lake, Wilson’s phalaropes are threatened.

The Center for Biological Diversity said that in 2022, the Great Salt Lake’s level ran so low that the food web risked collapsing because the water was too salty. Two consecutive wet winters temporarily staved off collapse.

Now at 4,191 feet, the lake is just one dry winter away from falling to its previously catastrophic low level.

“Scientists tell us unequivocally that the Wilson’s phalarope’s survival hinges on saving the Great Salt Lake,” said Deeda Seed, senior Utah campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Today the lake is 7 feet below a healthy level and the state of Utah isn’t doing nearly enough to save our beautiful life-giving lake. Time is running out for these birds and we need federal action to protect them now.”

The Center for Biological Diversity shared that Phalarope populations have fallen approximately 70% since the 1980s.

“Protecting the Wilson’s phalarope, which need a healthy Great Salt Lake ecosystem to survive, is our canary in the coal mine moment,” said Jonny Vasic, executive director of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. “If we allow these birds and their habitat to disappear, we will be endangering life along the Wasatch Front for humans as well.”