Our Work on Great Salt Lake

National Audubon Society is a long-time champion for Great Salt Lake and its surrounding wetlands. The lake provides irreplaceable habitat and is a key nesting, breeding, and stopover point for some 12 million migratory birds annually, representing 339 species. Many of these birds make a hemispheric journey throughout the Pacific Flyway. As the largest saline lake in the Western Hemisphere, the lake also benefits Utah’s economy through industrial activity and aquaculture, and provides recreational opportunities for visitors and locals. Additionally, the lake is a cornerstone of Utah’s culture and identity. 

In 1995, National Audubon established the Edward L. & Charles F. Gillmor Sanctuary on the southeastern shore of Great Salt Lake, providing vital habitat to vast numbers of shorebirds, waterfowl, and other migratory birds. Today, it continues to manage and protect the 3,669-acre Gillmor Sanctuary, which includes 300 acres of the southeastern shoreline as part of the South Shore Preserve. Over the past 30 years, Audubon’s stewardship of this area significantly increased the population of nesting water birds, including American Avocets, Wilson’s Phalaropes, Black-necked Stilts, Cinnamon Teals, and Gadwalls. The preserve also provides essential resources for migrating Marbled Godwits, Least and Western Sandpipers, and Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, as well as thousands of migrating waterfowl including Tundra Swans. 

As Great Salt Lake faces precipitous decline in water levels, Audubon stepped up to not only protect the birds that depend on the lake, but also protect the lake itself and its associated wetlands. Protecting these resources also benefits the people and communities that rely on its healthy   

In 2017, Audubon established its Saline Lakes Program, with a vision of supporting healthy saline lake ecosystems, including Great Salt Lake, with reliable water supplies to sustain birds and people. Through partnership and research, the program works to advance research, science and policy to conserve these ecosystems and the birds and wildlife that depend on them. 

Audubon, working with a broad group of partners, supported the adoption of the federal Saline Lake Ecosystems in the Great Basin States Program Act to establish a scientific monitoring and assessment program to help drive coordinated conservation across Great Salt Lake and other saline lakes in the West. This important bipartisan legislation provided a framework and funding for the United States Geological Survey to undertake an integrated scientific effort to inform effective management and conservation of saline lake habitats in the arid West. 

Audubon supported important water planning legislation and funding in 2022 for Utah’s Great Salt Lake Basin Integrated Basin Plan (GSLBIP) and continues its support for this work as a member of the GSLBIP Steering Committee. The integrated plan is a multi-year project which aims to increase understanding of water, ecological, and human needs in the Great Salt Lake Basin, and improving water management decision-making.  

In 2023, National Audubon Society, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), established the Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust for the benefit of Great Salt Lake, its wetlands and hydrology. The Trust’s mission is to help preserve the lake’s irreplaceable wetlands and waters by fostering collaborative partnerships and innovative water projects for the benefit of people and wildlife.  

When it comes to helping the lake get back to healthy levels, securing more water is widely considered one of the most effective solutions. In its two years since inception, the Trust and its co-managers have managed to protect existing flows and secure new water flows for Great Salt Lake by facilitating or funding various water transactions including permanent and temporary water donations, multi-year donations leases, and annual leases. The Trust transacted some 69,000 acre-feet of water in 2024, while strategically timing the release of water to benefit Great Salt Lake and surrounding ecosystems and mitigate deadly avian diseases like botulism. Additionally, the Trust supports wetland restoration and protection projects at 14 locations around the lake and formed strategic partnerships and collaboration on behalf of the lake. You can learn more about the impact of Audubon and TNC’s work for the Trust, and read the 2024 Annual Report, at https://www.gslwatertrust.org/our-impact. 

In 2025, Audubon’s work at Great Salt Lake continues. Here’s a snapshot of just a few things to look forward to:  

• Snowy Plover Monitoring Project 

In 2023, Audubon’s Saline Lakes Program partnered with Audubon Rockies’ Gillmor Sanctuary and Tracy Aviary’s Conservation Program to establish a Snowy Plover Monitoring Program on the South Shore of Great Salt Lake. Snowy Plovers are declining across their range, and the interior population depends on Great Salt Lake as a critically important breeding site. The South Shore of Great Salt Lake is a popular recreation area, and disturbances in this region may be negatively impacting the Snowy Plovers trying to nest there. This project seeks to understand if and how this is happening so we can develop solutions to conserve this charismatic little bird. In 2025, Audubon will continue to lead this project, and host a Snowy Plover Webinar on March 12.

Sign up to volunteer with the Snowy Plover Monitoring Project 
Live zoom training: March 28, 2025

• Intermountain West Shorebird Surveys 

Initiated in the Fall of 2022, the Intermountain West Shorebird Surveys are a monumental endeavor to replicate a 30-year old survey to map out the distribution and abundance of migratory shorebirds as they move through the interior portion of the Pacific Flyway in hopes the results will help wetland managers across the country to sustain the wetlands shorebirds depend on, even in an age of changing water systems. The main goals of procuring this new data include taking a retrospective look to see how populations of shorebirds and their distribution across these wetlands have changed over the last three decades, and understand how the wetlands themselves have changed to help wetland managers inform their management of the land.

Audubon is one of the key partners and organizers of the surveys and recently published the official website for Intermountain West Shorebird Survey, www.imwss.org, which features survey resources, preliminary data, and more. As one of the most important sites in the survey, Great Salt Lake hosts over 100 biologists and volunteers over 1-2 days to survey across 1700 square miles of the lake and its wetlands. You can register today for a presentation on the survey’s in partnership with Great Basin Bird Observatory and Lahontan Audubon Society on March 20. Survey dates at Great Salt Lake this year include:

Spring Survey: April 18-25 
Fall Survey: August 9-16 

To sign up as a volunteer at Great Salt Lake contact Max Malmquist at max.malmquist@audubon.org. 

• Great Salt Lake Bird Festival 

Audubon will be sponsoring and tabling at the annual Great Salt Lake Bird Festival, where hundreds come together to learn about birds from  birding experts, celebrate the beautiful array of birds at Great Salt Lake, and participate in hands-on learning workshops. Members of Audubon’s Saline Lakes team and Gillmor Sanctuary team will be leading several fieldtrips at the festival including digiscoping, beginning birding, mindful bird kayaking and more.

Festival dates: May 15-18 
Registration opens in March 

• Gillmor Sanctuary  

2025 is a big year for Audubon’s Gillmor Sanctuary as it celebrates its 30th year anniversary. Several restoration projects will be kicked off to treat major threats to bird habitat on this section of the lower Jordan River watershed through funding from National Fish and Wildlife Federation America the Beautiful Challenge, NAWCA, and GSLWET funding. The Sanctuary will be hosting its anniversary celebration later in the year at the Lee Creek Natural Area. Throughout this year the Gillmor Sanctuary will continue its 2nd year of a community science Salt Lake Valley ALAN Monitoring Program to monitor the extent of light pollution to help inform better policy for safe passage of millions of birds that migrate through the valley at night.   

Gillmor will continue to host Gillmor Sanctuary Work Days where volunteers will have the opportunity to visit the sanctuary and its birds in person while working alongside staff and other community members on meaningful projects that improve critical bird habitat. Additionally, you can attend the Discover Gillmor Sanctuary Series in April 2025 and join Audubon staff on a tour of Gillmor Sanctuary highlighting shorebirds and other spring migrants in their natural habitat. Keep an eye out for a more detailed look at Gillmor’s upcoming projects, events, and opportunities in 2025.

• Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust 

As the Great Salt Lake Watershed Enhancement Trust (the Trust) moves into its third year, it will continue to work toward its mission to help preserve the irreplaceable wetlands and waters of Great Salt Lake by fostering collaborative partnerships and innovative water projects for the benefit of people and wildlife. In 2025, the Trust will coordinate closely with the Office of the Great Salt Lake Commissioner to work toward the goals of the Trust’s Five-Year Strategy. 

The Trust is also working to secure new partnerships across the Great Salt Lake Basin that will  help to facilitate water transactions for the lake, continue to support the ongoing work of the 2023 and 2024 wetland projects, and strategically time water releases to benefit birds, wildlife, and the ecosystem. 

• Saline Lake Webinars 

Check back in throughout the year for updates on upcoming webinars and presentations from the Saline Lakes team. 

This is only a snapshot of Audubon’s work and efforts to help Great Salt Lake in 2025. To stay up-to-date with Audubon’s work at Great Salt Lake, sign up for the Western Water Newsletter.