PERRY HALL<\/span><\/strong> has celebrated his birthday the same way for the last 12 years. Every sixth of October, he wakes up well before the sun creeps over the Wasatch Mountains of northeastern Utah. He hitches his boat trailer to his old Tacoma and loads the topped truck bed with waders, decoys, a 12 gauge, and plenty of shells. His Lab, Lottie, rides shotgun all the way to the Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area. And each year, she fetches Hall\u2019s birds from the Great Salt Lake.<\/p>\n This season is different.<\/p>\n \u201cI just got off the water,\u201d Hall sighed into the phone last month, the night before his 36th<\/sup> birthday. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m hunting tomorrow. There\u2019s nothing out there. I didn\u2019t see a single duck tonight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Locals like Hall will tell you the Wasatch Front wasn\u2019t always like this. Even just a decade ago, the duck hunting on the Great Salt Lake was lights out, with public-land and private-club hunters shooting teal, pintails, and mallards during fast-and-furious hunts. But as chronic drought (the worst megadrought to hit the Wasatch Front since 800 A.D.), higher temps, diverted water, and a skyrocketing human population have descended on the West, the Pacific Flyway is more strained than ever before. Ducks and geese are getting desperate\u2014and sick\u2014as they\u2019re forced to fly greater distances for less water and forage, especially as the other two crucial habitat areas in the Pacific Flyway dry up. The Great Salt Lake should be the desert oasis that saves the day, a quenching port in the dust storm.<\/p>\n Instead, it\u2019s going down the drain. And it\u2019s taking Perry\u2019s birthday duck hunting tradition with it.<\/p>\n The Wasatch Front stretches from Logan to Provo, with Salt Lake City sprawling about two thirds of the way down the roughly 100-by-10-mile valley. The Wasatch Range to the east and the Great Salt Lake to the west provide equally dramatic backdrops to this sprawling metropolis. Subdivision streets creep into every nook and cranny between business parks, shopping malls, and sloping foothills, and a heavy sprinkle of 15,000-square-foot mansions look down from higher elevations.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the same story in many cities out West, from Albuquerque to Bozeman to Colorado Springs. Most patches of dirt are under construction or staked with big \u201cFor Sale\u201d signs. Housing prices are soaring,<\/a> along with homelessness rates<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The population of Utah<\/a> was over 1.6 million in 1986. Today, it\u2019s twice that, and on track to double in the coming decades. Worse, an estimated 90 percent of that population lives in the Wasatch Front. More people require more water, and that extra demand is straining a watershed that\u2019s already taxed. Marry this overdraft with the effects of climate change, and the Great Salt Lake lowers with every passing year. Much of the surface area around the eastern shore is exposed mud or hard, cracked earth. As if the receding lake weren\u2019t bad enough, that dirt contains a toxic blend<\/a> of metals like arsenic, which have been contained for a thousand years. Now the wind picks up these heavy metals and blows them to the neighboring cities, potentially sickening humans, pets, and livestock.<\/p>\n This phenomenon has happened before, but not on this scale. A rerun of the Owens Lake disaster looms over the Wasatch Front these days. That lake shriveled to nothing<\/a> in 1926 after Los Angeles city planners sucked all the water over to their growing metropolis.<\/p>\n \u201cNow the winds blow toxic dust into that little valley every year,\u201d says Ducks Unlimited water outreach specialist and Utah representative Casey Snider. \u201cBut that was a small town a hundred years ago and a lake that was a fraction of the size of the Great Salt Lake. This is 90 percent of Utah\u2019s population right here, who very soon could be breathing in dust that has all sorts of garbage in it. That\u2019s the human dimension of this, and when you combine human catastrophe with ecological collapse, that\u2019s a recipe for disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n Gov. Spencer Cox received backlash this summer when he asked<\/a> Utahns to join him in \u201cpraying collaboratively and collectively, asking God or whatever higher power you believe in for more rain,\u201d while continuing to shorten showers, fix faucets, and plant water-wise landscapes.\u00a0<\/p>\n The lake reached a record low exactly a month later, when scientists recorded the Great Salt Lake\u2019s water level at 4,190 feet above sea level on July 3, 2022. It held a little over a quarter of the water, and about half the surface area that it did in 1986. This prompted Gov. Cox to suspend all new applications for water rights in the Great Salt Lake Basin via proclamation<\/a> on Nov. 3. This move won\u2019t affect current water users and their rights to surface water and groundwater in the basin, but it does restrict new water rights with few exceptions.<\/p>\n The Wasatch Front is also home to a lot of Kentucky bluegrass. Lawns have become cause for major controversy in the area. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pour plenty of water<\/a> into maintaining their landscaping. The LDS Church addressed this issue in June when it announced<\/a> plans to further water conservation efforts by planting more native species and altering landscapes and lawns. But many homeowners and businesses remain guilty of maintaining thick grass in the desert.<\/p>\n This landscaping problem is made possible, in part, because Utah has the cheapest water in the country, thanks to government subsidies funded by property taxes. This might seem strange for a conservative state that largely believes in limited taxation and the free market. But whether it\u2019s drinking water or unfiltered irrigation water, there is little financial incentive to curb water use. Other Western towns charge for water based on use, which naturally reduces water waste. If Utah doesn\u2019t<\/em> make progress with its water conservation soon, Snider says the outlook is bleak\u2014not just for ducks and hunters, but for all wildlife and Utahns.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d be looking at significant collapse of migratory bird populations. And beyond that, maybe you don\u2019t care about wildlife, and that\u2019s certainly your prerogative, but if Great Salt Lake turns into Owens Lake, then everybody in this valley is going to care.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bear River is 350 miles long, making it the longest closed-basin river in the country. It starts in the Uinta Mountains and carves through high desert, cattle ranches, and sagebrush in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho before emptying into the Great Salt Lake. The Bear provides two-thirds of the Great Salt Lake\u2019s water, but much of that is drawn for ag, cattle, and city water long before it arrives.<\/p>\n Few places feel this strain more than the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, where the Bear River empties into the northern end of the lake. The Refuge, which is owned and operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, manages two-thirds of the Great Salt Lake\u2019s inflows through a series of levies, impoundments, and water-control structures while putting up with drought, water-guzzling invasive species, avian botulism outbreaks, high costs, and other barriers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis refuge is a very managed landscape that relies on the water of the Bear River to support hundreds of thousands of migratory birds that come through here,\u201d says Erin Holmes, the Refuge project lead. \u201cSo it\u2019s a bit of an oasis in the middle of the desert.\u201d<\/p>\n Lately, it\u2019s only been an oasis for part of the year. The Refuge\u2019s water right, one of the biggest and oldest in the area, takes priority from Oct. 1 to May. But for the remainder of the year, irrigators take precedence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe state of Utah does not recognize water rights as beneficial for wildlife,\u201d Holmes says. \u201c[The water] goes straight to irrigation, which is fine, because people need to grow their crops and eat. But that means in the summertime, there simply isn\u2019t any water available.\u201d<\/p>\n And when summer flows are lacking, fall migration conditions at the Refuge are\u00a0rough.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we don\u2019t have water in the summertime, we can\u2019t provide any habitat for birds [during the fall],\u201d she says. \u201cIt used to be that there was plenty of water in the system. The Bear River watershed had lots of water. But now with the drought, there\u2019s not enough.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n So how do you manage water when there\u2019s not enough? Holmes and her small team sprint around the Refuge\u2019s 77,000 acres and 96 miles of dikes and levies to adjust water-control structures. Some structures involve manually dropping 60 or 70 long wooden slats into wide-set grooves like a game of Connect-4 to create blockages. Others are more advanced and easier to use but also pricier.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a juggling game. It\u2019s really science but it\u2019s also art,\u201d Holmes says. \u201cSometimes it looks like a Picasso painting, sometimes it looks like Monet, sometimes it looks like something I would draw, which is not very pretty. But you just have to [be flexible and manage] based on conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n Even when badly needed rain or snowmelt does flow into the Great Salt Lake, it can become too much of a good thing for migratory waterfowl. When certain parts of the Refuge flood, the threat of avian botulism explodes. Botulism occurs naturally in the soils of the Great Salt Lake\u2014soils that are now being exposed to air for the first time in modern history. When the exposed lakebed floods, it can create prime conditions for bacteria growth. Ducks get sick and die, only to become hosts for maggots and other insects that healthy ducks eat.<\/p>\n \u201cFor waterfowl this can be catastrophic, because they can\u2019t hold their heads up and they drown,\u201d says Holmes. Extreme muscle weakness is a symptom of botulism. \u201cI remember going out on an airboat and seeing ducks\u2019 [bills] just barely above the water.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Drought is a problem that reaches far beyond the Great Salt Lake. If you zoom out and look at the whole Pacific flyway, it relies on three crucial stopover areas: the Klamath Basin, California\u2019s Central Valley, and the Great Salt Lake. According to Mark Petrie, the director of conservation planning at Ducks Unlimited, these three landscapes are like dominoes. Once one falls, the others will, too. Between September and April, 70 percent of the ducks within the American Pacific Flyway will be resting and feeding at these three areas.<\/p>\n One domino is already flat on its back. Two other historically rich and productive waterfowl areas in the Klamath Basin, the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake national wildlife refuges, went completely dry this year<\/a>, prompting a bird hunting closure for the 2022 to 2023 season. Meanwhile drought conditions have also worsened in the Central Valley<\/a>, where rice and other crop production is struggling. Petrie is most concerned about food resources for migrating waterfowl.<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s something that keeps me up at night,\u201d Petrie says. \u201cEighty percent of all foraging habitat for ducks in the Big Three need annual deliveries of water supplies. Every year, we have to get annual water supplies to provide most of the food that has traditionally been supplied in these three landscapes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Petrie contrasts available resources in the Pacific Flyway with those in the Mississippi and Atlantic flyways. If drought occurs in those regions, ducks can rely on coastal and Mississippi River-adjacent wetlands to support their food demands.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut 80 percent of coastal wetlands on the Pacific coast have been lost,\u201d Petrie says. \u201cThis part of the world just doesn\u2019t have the capacity to handle the overflow or additional demand birds would put on those environments when the Big Three dry. So there aren\u2019t a lot of places these birds can turn.\u201d<\/p>\n The Great Salt Lake has long been known to host some of the best waterfowl hunting<\/a> in the West. It serves up access to public waters and marshes and private duck clubs alike. Utah representative and Ducks Unlimited water outreach specialist Casey Snider remembers what it was like to hunt waterfowl along the Wasatch Front as a kid.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAt about three in the morning, we would pile our decoys on our backs and tie our guns to our handlebars and we would ride the dike as far as we could, and then in the dead of night we would take our guns and decoys off and hide our bikes in the cattails,\u201d Snider recalls. \u201cThe canal was too deep to wade across, so you would throw your decoys in and then jump on your decoys and kick and paddle across the canal until you hit enough mud to stand in. And then you\u2019d trudge for a mile until you could set up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n To Snider, the effort was worth it for the quality of duck hunting he enjoyed. Things have changed for him, just like they have for every other waterfowler on the Wasatch Front. Because the lake reached a record high just 36 years ago, plenty of Utahns remember when things were different. This change hasn\u2019t been a slow one. In geological terms, the lake\u2019s recession practically happened overnight.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t even run my airboat anymore. Everywhere I used to run it is dry,\u201d Snider says. He looks out over the dehydrated flats around Antelope Island and points out the Farmington Bay WMA on the southeastern shore of the lake, where Perry Hall normally spends his birthday hunting. The Bay is all but cut off from the rest of the lake by exposed ground. Just a single channel east of Antelope Island keeps the two connected.<\/p>\n A few days later, Hall\u2019s champagne Tacoma bounces down the access road to Farmington Bay in the early morning darkness.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think the majority of duck hunters in Utah realize the severity of the situation,\u201d Hall says as he digs around in his truck. \u201cThe majority of duck hunting in northern Utah is done in water-controlled and diked units, like Farmington Bay and Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. So there is a decent amount of water inside the dikes of the unit, but once you get outside the dikes, the situation is much worse. And I don\u2019t think duck hunters realize that because they come out and see water.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Sure enough, as we drive along the access road, it looks like there\u2019s plenty of water. If I hadn\u2019t seen the area surrounding the Farmington Bay from Antelope Island three days prior, I wouldn\u2019t realize the severity of the situation either. <\/p>\n Hall describes when early season at Farmington Bay sounded like the Battle of Gettysburg and pellets would rain down from the sky all morning. But today it\u2019s quiet as the sun climbs the east side of the Wasatch, even though trucks with boat trailers are parked around the area.\u00a0<\/p>\nGrowing Populations, Shrinking Habitat<\/h2>\n
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Wildlife Refuges Are a Bear to Manage<\/h2>\n
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A Disappearing Flyway<\/h2>\n
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Hunting the Once-Great Salt Lake<\/h2>\n
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