The location of Great Salt Lake and it 15,000 sq.mi. of water environment, its remote islands and shoreline, and those 400,000 acres of wetlands translates into what might best be described as a "bird magnet".

Birds of regional, national, and international significance depend on Great Salt Lake for resident feeding and sanctuary, breeding, or for migratory stop-overs.

There are 2-1/2 times more birds at Great Salt Lake through the year than there are people in the entire State of Utah. 5 million birds, 250 species, rely on the Lake.

The ecology of birdlife at Great Salt Lake is one of the grandest examples of the rich web of relationships here between land and water, food and survival.

• Wilson's Phalarope - 800,000; the largest staging concentration in the world
• Red-Necked Phalarope - 280,000 in a single day estimate
• American Avocet - 250,000 many times higher than any other wetland in the Pacific Flyway
• Marbled Godwit - 30,000, the only staging area in the interior USA
• Snowy Plover - 10,000, the world's largest assemblage, representing 55% of the entire breeding population west of the Rocky Mountains
• American White Pelican- 18,000 breeding adults, one of the three largest colonies in western North America
• White-Faced Ibis - 7,500 breeding adults, world's largest breeding population
• California Gull - 160,000 breeding adults, world's largest breeding population
• Eared Grebe - 1.4 million, second largest staging population in North America
• Approximately 30 % (3,000,000 of 10,000,000) of the ducks using the Pacific and Central Flyways spend time in the Great Salt Lake marshes.