Wilson’s Phalarope

Conservation

Wilson’s phalaropes rely on threatened wetland and saline lake habitat in both their breeding and migratory ranges. Water diversion, climate change, and agricultural pollution threaten the health of these critical habitats and the birds that rely on them. Critical saline lake migratory stops for phalaropes, including Great Salt Lake, Utah and Laguna Mar Chiquita, Argentina, are shrinking due to water diversion and drought—putting Wilson’s phalaropes and other species at risk.

In collaboration with partners around the western hemisphere, we formed the International Phalarope Working Group, and carry out research critical to understanding and bringing attention to the urgent need to protect saline lakes and the birds that rely on them. By fostering connections between researchers and conservationists at saline lakes from Canada to Argentina, we work to ensure that saline lakes are conserved not in isolation, but as a thriving hemispheric network. Through our research, we are telling the story of the Wilson’s phalarope and how it unites conservation efforts for saline lakes across the hemisphere. Our research has included coordinating multi-year phalarope surveys across major staging sites in western North America, collecting first-of-its-kind information on phalarope movements using nanotags, leading shorebird surveys for interior wetlands of Chile, and leading segments of the Intermountain West Shorebird Survey. This research is crucial to helping us deliver the compelling story of phalaropes and saline lakes to decision-makers setting water policies that will determine the fates of saline lake ecosystems, and the birds that depend on them.

About the species

After breeding in wetlands in interior prairies and wetlands of North America, Wilson’s phalaropes undertake an incredible trans-hemispheric journey to South America. Flocks of tens of thousands stop at North American saline lakes, such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah and Mono Lake in California, which offer food-rich stopovers to molt feathers and provision for a non-stop, more than 3,000-mile flight to South America. Much of the world population concentrates at just a few large saline lakes in the late summer, where they form mesmerizing flying flocks of tens of thousands of individuals that shift and dance in tight and sudden turns. Once in South America, Wilson’s Phalaropes specialize in saline lagoons and lakes, both in the high Andes and in the lowlands of Argentina. What makes them truly unique is their reliance on saline lake habitats in both North and South America—making them a potent symbol for the conservation of these unique ecosystems as a hemispheric network.