Gunnison Island is located in the northwest quadrant of the Great Salt Lake in Box Elder County,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

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, approximately northwest of

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

and about east from the lake's western shore, and is best known as an important rookery for the American white pelican (''Pelecanus erythrorhynchus''). The

California gull The California gull (''Larus californicus'') is a medium-sized gull, smaller on average than the herring gull but larger on average than the ring-billed gull, though it may overlap in size greatly with both. Description Adults are similar in ap ...

(''Larus californicus'') also nests on the island, and occasional nesters include the great blue heron (''Ardea herodias''),

common raven The common raven (''Corvus corax'') is a large all-black passerine bird. It is the most widely distributed of all corvids, found across the Northern Hemisphere. It is a raven known by many names at the subspecies level; there are at least ...

(''Corvus corax''),

prairie falcon The prairie falcon (''Falco mexicanus'') is a medium-large sized falcon of western North America. It is about the size of a peregrine falcon or a crow, with an average length of 40 cm (16 in), wingspan of approximately 1 meter (40&n ...

(''Falco mexicanus''), and rock wren (''Salpinctes obsoltetus''). The entire island is the Gunnison Island State Wildlife Management Area.Gunnison Island State Wildlife Management Area
stateparks.com. Access to the island is restricted to prevent curious tourists from disturbing the nesting birds.
''

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is part of the Utah Department of Natural Resources for the state of Utah in the United States. The mission of the Division of Wildlife Resources is to serve the people of Utah as trustee and guardian of ...

''.

Wildlife biologists estimate that the population on Gunnison Island (about 10,000) constitutes about 10–20% of the entire American white pelican population; there are also about 15,000 California gulls that nest on the island.Mr. Hall
The Great Salt Lake Page for Kids.
1984. Utah State Wildlife Policy. Historically, the island's remote location protected it from predators, which made it an ideal spot for ground-nesting birds. However, due to recent low lake levels, it is no longer an island; it is connected to shore by a land bridge which predators can use. The remoteness also forces the pelicans to travel or more to find fresh water and food. The pelicans typically fly east to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, where the Bear River flows into the Great Salt Lake. In the bird refuge, the water's salinity is low enough that fish can live there. (The Great Salt Lake contains no fish.) The pelicans have also been known to fly south to

Utah Lake Utah Lake is a shallow freshwater lake in the center of Utah County, Utah, United States. It lies in Utah Valley, surrounded by the Provo- Orem metropolitan area. The lake's only river outlet, the Jordan River, is a tributary of the Great Salt ...

, about away. To get to their destinations, large flocks of adult pelicans ride

thermal A thermal column (or thermal) is a rising mass of buoyant air, a convective current in the atmosphere, that transfers heat energy vertically. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example ...

s to a great height, then coast down to their destination.

History

Gunnison Island was named after John W. Gunnison, an American

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

and surveyor of the Great Salt Lake valley in 1849. In the mid-1890s, artist and author Alfred Lambourne spent a year living in solitude on the island. From November 1895 to March 1896, he was alone. In March, a few enterprising individuals decided to harvest and sell the abundant guano that the nesting birds left behind as

fertilizer A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...

. Lambourne included musings about these guano sifters in his work ''Our Inland Sea'', which he authored during his time on the island. Lambourne left the island early in the winter of 1896 along with the first group of guano sifters. The mining activity caused the pelicans to temporarily abandon Gunnison Island as a nesting site, though the gulls remained despite the human company. Because of the difficulty of obtaining the guano, however, and its tendency to dissolve in the rain and wash back into the Great Salt Lake, the guano industry was abandoned about ten years after it began.Lyndia Carter (June 1996
"Guano Sifters on Gunnison Island,"
''History Blazer''.

References

External links

Guano Sifters on Gunnison Island
(on official Utah History to Go website) {{authority control Landforms of Box Elder County, Utah Lake islands of Utah Great Salt Lake Protected areas of Box Elder County, Utah Uninhabited islands of Utah Islands of Utah

History

See also

References

External links