Orvis is once again joining forces with the Nature Conservancy to help preserve essential wildlife habitat.

               Photo Courtesy of James D. McIntyre
In 2003, Orvis has committed to help acquire land on Utah’s Great Salt Lake
and along Canada’s Frenchman River watershed—two critical stopover points for the Wilson’s phalarope during its annual migration. Almost half of the world’s 10,000 bird species depend on the forests, wetlands, and grasslands of the Americas to survive. As part of their Migratory Bird Program, the Nature Conservancy is now working to save these key nesting, staging, and feeding grounds for the Wilson’s phalarope. The article below explains the urgency of this project.

The Wilson’s phalarope is used as an indicator species for a number of water and wetland dependant birds and is one of the most remarkable of all species to illustrate the concept of stopover ecology, the dependence of migrating bird species upon widely spaced islands of habitat and resources. In our efforts to promote international conservation and to ensure that migratory bird species persist, The Orvis Company has partnered with The Nature Conservancy in the United States and Canada to protect both the breeding and stopover habitat for the Wilson’s phalarope. By using sound science and GIS maps, the Nature Conservancy has designed conservation strategies that include all aspects of a migrating bird’s, in this case, the Wilson’s phalarope’s lifecycle.

Wilson’s phalaropes are among one of the most highly migratory order of birds in the world, migrating from the tip of western South America to the northern Great Plains. Approximately 90% of all western phalaropes (Phalaropus tricolor) congregate in one of three alkaline lakes in early fall to prepare for their long migration south. Thus population trends and survival are dependent on the availability of food and habitat in these key stopover lakes: the Great Salt Lake in Utah, Mono Lake in California and Lake Albert in Oregon. Of these three, well over half, and as much as 80 percent of the world’s population, rely on the Great Salt Lake. Each August, the phalaropes stop here to prepare for their non-stop flight to the northern coast of South America. It is during this time that they undergo a critical phase in their life cycle—feeding and molting. For a few short weeks they are completely reliant on the lake. They roost on the shoreline, forage near the shore for brine flies, or fly to deeper water to feed on the greater quantities of brine shrimp. In the process they double their body weight, storing large amounts of fat to withstand the exertion of migration. At this time they lose all their feathers and re-grow new ones rapidly, by bird standards, within 35 to 40 days. Some phalaropes gain as much as 55% of their body weight during this time and will have trouble walking and taking off, in some cases needing long stretches of open water to as a runway. With the energy consumed at these sites, the birds will migrate south in a series of long-distance flights, often flying from the Great Salt Lake to Ecuador non-stop.

While the Wilson’s phalaropes have a strong dependence upon the Great Salt Lake habitat and the abundance of brine fly populations, the brine flies, in turn, depend upon the natural salinity of the lake. For these reasons, the Nature Conservancy is concerned about the impact of human activities on the quality of the lake’s ecosystem. Threats to the area include efforts to partition off freshwater lakes for recreation, increasing development in the lake’s historical floodplain, and wetland degradation due to water diversion. To address these concerns the Conservancy is focusing on the acquisition of seven properties, primarily along the Eastern shore of the lake where concentrations of phalaropes are highest.

Acquisition of uplands and adjacent wetlands can help prevent habitat degradation. If human impacts are reduced, the lake can freely ebb and flow, based on annual rain and snow accumulations, and can maintain the healthy wetland and saline environment necessary for the success of brine shrimp and brine flies. Restoration projects will help maintain water sources to the lake, thereby assuring that adequate water will reach the lake rather than being diverted or channeled inappropriately. Overall, the Conservancy’s strategies are geared toward maintaining a natural lake ecosystem that supports healthy brine fly and shrimp populations—key, annual food sources for thousands of Wilson’s phalaropes.

The Nature Conservancy is also working on protecting the breeding habitat for Wilson’s phalaropes and other migratory bird species throughout the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada. The abundance of water, nesting cover, insect life, and endless miles of open skies in Saskatchewan, Canada support the largest breeding population of Wilson’s phalaropes in North America. The Nature Conservancy of Canada is working with partners to protect this incredibly rich and productive environment by engaging landowners, agencies, and other conservation organizations to preserve existing habitat and to restore drained wetlands and plowed prairies. The two primary threats to Wilson’s phalaropes in their breeding grounds in Canada are drainage and cultivation of wetlands and inappropriate cattle grazing on shoreline and upland nesting habitat. Solutions to drainage and cultivation include purchasing land with appropriate existing habitat, placing a conservation easement on existing habitat that restricts drainage and cultivation in perpetuity, and purchasing and restoring cultivated nested habitat. Since 2000, The Conservancy has protected 12 properties representing 4,985 acres of critical habitat for Wilson’s phalarope and other migrating bird species. The Nature Conservancy of Canada is working to protect an additional 10,400 acres in this region. These properties will ensure that thousands of acres of uninterrupted habitat will remain intact for Wilson’s phalaropes and other birds of the prairie and wetlands.

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