“Recent climate change is affecting an entire landscape of terrestrial and wetland ecosystems in a complex manner,” the report found. “As the mix of wetlands shifts towards more saline and fewer freshwater wetlands, waterbirds experience increasing water stress. Together, these factors result in degradation of a continental migration route and important breeding area.”
Susan Haig, the lead author, an emerita scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey and an Oregon State University professor, said “birds are like the canary in the mine” for the health of water.
“Humans should be very attentive to how birds are responding to water because it’s right in their backyard and that’s the water they use too,” Haig said in a phone interview last week.
Although the study included wetlands in California and Oregon such as Mono Lake and Lake Abert, Haig said several wetlands in Nevada provide crucial habitat for birds at various points of their life cycle. Eared grebes are known to stop at Pyramid Lake, the terminus of the Truckee River northeast of Reno, on their migration path. Other water birds stop to breed at Walker Lake near Hawthorne or rest on their migratory path at the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge near Fallon.