Wednesday December 7, 2022
FOX 40 —
Every winter, millions of migrating birds come to the Sacramento Valley, but now these birds may find the marshes and flooded rice fields dry.
The marshes and flooded rice fields here are a stopping point for the birds along the Pacific flyway, and scientists are now putting GPS trackers on birds to learn how they’re reacting to the dry environment.
“A migratory pathway for waterfowl and shorebirds that are coming from northern areas, moving into the Central Valley and looking for spots to feed, to rest and continue on their journey farther south to warmer areas in the winter, and then heading back north again in the spring,” Samantha Arthur, Audubon California Working Lands Program Director, said.
Arthur says ninety percent of the region’s wetlands have been lost to development over the past one hundred years.
“So that remaining ten percent of wetlands is so critical in this area. And then luckily, we also have rice that provides a compliment to those wetlands,” Arthur continued.