Finding refuge

Bird sancturay still an escape for fowl, people

BRIGHAM CITY -- In early morning the front yard of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge's education building is a noisy mix of ideal and reality.

A causeway to the building passes over a wetland of reeds, grasses and cattails. Yellow-headed blackbirds sway on individual stocks and scream. Cliff swallows swarm from nests built under the eaves of the building and swerve overhead, chasing bugs.

Somewhere in the distance an unseen animal's call rings out like a stick thumping a hollow log.

But in the east, never hidden by the sounds of nature, is the constant whoosh and rumble of traffic on Interstate 15.

As Top of Utah cities spread northward, the refuge is becoming more than just a place in the country where a lot of wildlife lives.

With every new subdivision and gas station, the refuge is becoming a refuge in the literal sense of the word: A last place, whether for the several million birds that live or visit there or the thousands of people who pass through.

That battle between development and conservation is what created the refuge.

As early as 1903 local farmers and towns were diverting water from the Bear River. Wetlands began to dry. Massive flocks of migrating birds began to wither.

In 1928 avian botulism killed hundreds of thousand of birds. Residents petitioned Congress for help and the refuge was made a national refuge.

The refuge is key to the Box Elder economy, both as a hunting resource and tourist attraction. A sign over Brigham City's main street has featured the refuge for more than 80 years.

Tourism brochures from Brigham City and Box Elder both feature the refuge. Visitors from Europe and Asia visit Utah specifically for the refuge.

Director Bob Barrett and his staff see protecting the refuge's delicate role as their primary goal.

"We're in a mini-window right now where we need to conserve this critical habitat," Barrett said, "because that window will close in the near future as people discover Utah, and businesses set up in Utah."

That includes not just the refuge and its 76,000 acres, but the Great Salt Lake and neighboring private land and hunting preserves.

Like birds, pollution and invasive plant species can't see boundaries on a map. Refuge staff spend as much time making partners out of neighbors and working to protect neighboring lands as they do on their own turf.

Kathi Stopher, the environmental education specialist, said "there's lots going on, biology, cutting edge research, partnerships with the landowners."

Karl Fleming, a refuge biologist, said recent projects include helping remove salt cedar on riverbanks into the refuge and improving wetlands with local hunt clubs. He is also working with the National Resources Conservation Service on upland projects to protect sage grouse habitat.

Such work "extends that wildlife conservation idea beyond the boundaries of the refuge," Barrett said.

A rather plain looking bird called the marbled godwit has helped the refuge go international.

The godwit is what Barrett called an "indicator" species. Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the godwit is unusually sensitive to its environment "so if they can't make it, there's probably some other species that also can't make it," he said.

Godwits can do 40 mph and fly from Utah to Hudson's Bay with only one stopover.

Their usual migration is from Canada to Mexico, so godwits visiting the Bear River Refuge are trapped, fitted with a transmitter that looks like a tiny backpack, then tracked by satellite and Internet.

Monitoring them makes the Bear River Bird Refuge part of a three-country effort, Stopher said. Information on their feeding patterns, added to measures of food availability in the refuge and other places, helps researchers tell how the entire ecosystem in all three nations is doing.

Stopher said refuges have six public uses: photography, interpretation, environmental education, hunting, fishing and observation.

Barrett said Bear River tries to excel at all of those.

"We have at this refuge a world-class environmental education program," he said, including the largest education building in the system.

One feature he loves is what he calls the "Wetland Wonders Walk," just out the back of the building. It's a circular trail that curves around the manmade wetlands behind the education center.

"The kids, when they get out there, they can get muddy, they can get dirty. It's totally for the kids," he said, "and the response we get is, just, wow."

Stopher said the education building has been open only two years, but so far it has seen about 6,000 school children a year along with about 50,000 tourists.

One thing that will hurt tourism is reconstruction, this year, of the road.

While the refuge was rebuilt after the floods of the early 1980s, the road to the public viewing grounds never really has been. It is eroded and washboarded. During spring floods visitors have to drive through water flowing over it.

A $20 million program to rebuild it in two phases, this year and 2010, will start in July. Barrett said the road will be closed about three months. The refuge is looking at possibly offering guided tours "on a very limited basis," and expects the road to be open in time for hunting season.

Ultimately, the road will improve the refuge, which will bring more visitors, which will put the refuge right back where it started, fighting against encroaching development.

Which is exactly why the refuge will be needed, in the future, more than ever, Barrett said.

It will remain, he said, "a place where people can come together and talk about wildlife conservation."

Some quick facts about the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge

* James V. Hansen Wildlife Education Center and refuge entrance is located west of Brigham City. Take the Forest Street exit, 363, off Interstate 15 and go west.

* The center offers interactive exhibits, a wetland diorama and other displays featuring information on birds and wetlands of the Great Salt Lake ecosystem. A half-mile accessible walking trail meanders through the wetland habitat just outside the center

* Refuge auto tour is open dawn to dusk daily. Education center is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday and federal holidays.

* A 12-mile auto tour route of one of the refuge's units is at the end of a 15-mile country road going west from the education center.

* The refuge includes 76,000 acres of wetland on the northeast arm of Great Salt Lake.

* It was founded 1928.

* A list of birds known to have been seen at the refuge shows 212 species, including 72 that are known to breed there and another 36 listed as "accidental."

* Hosts a spring peak population of 18,000 shore birds and a fall peak population of 69,000 shore birds.

* Designated as an Audubon Important Bird Area.

* In 1991 the Great Salt Lake area, including the refuge, were listed as a Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network site.

* It has an estimated 18,000 breeding white-faced ibis every year, or 12 percent of the world population of that bird.

* As part of Great Salt Lake ecosystem, it hosts 1.5 million eared grebes, 32,000 cinnamon teal, 250,000 American avocets, 200,000 California gulls.

* Salt Lake colony of American white pelican can exceed 20,000, one of three largest in North America.

To be a volunteer

The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge has a small paid staff and a huge staff of volunteers.

Volunteers run the information desk, lead tours, serve as teacher/naturalists, help plan and execute special events, help staff the bookstore, do odd jobs around the refuge and many other tasks.

The refuge is always looking for more volunteers willing to learn more about the refuge and help with its operations.

For more information, contact Betsy Beneke, volunteer coordinator, at (435) 734-6436, e-mail betsy_beneke@fws.gov, or visit the refuge education center at 2155 West Forest St., Brigham City.

Detailed job descriptions and information forms can be found at http://bearriver.fws.gov.