SALT LAKE CITY, Utah —Drive west of this high desert city, and it's like entering another world. Or maybe better put, another worldly landscape: the vast, and drying wetlands along the Great Salt Lake, the largest salt lake left in the western hemisphere（西半球）, some fifty miles long and thirty wide.
Carly Biedul is part of a team of scientists who have been tracking the lake's decline am id the West's record drought, which is made worse by climate change. They've been conducting weekly trips to various sampling and study sites for the last several years at the remote lake that only recently started making international headlines due to its sharp decline. Scientists warn the lake has already shrunk（缩减）nearly in half from its historical average. "For these birds that queue into these salty habitats, there are fewer places for them to go." Says Heidi Hoven, a wetlands ecologist.
Scientists say the West is believed to be as dry as it's been in 1,200 years. The record drought has been contributing to the Great Salt Lake's decline. But agriculture usually bears the major part of the blame. Upstream water diversions（导流）for expanding farms have meant less and less flows into the lake. Utah's population is also growing fast, and the development is now running right up to the lake.
But all this shock and alarm, the scientists say, may be good. Faced with such severe situation, the state is being pushed into action. Utah Governor Spencer Cox has promised the lake won't dry up on his watch. The state's law -making department has put upwards of a billion dollars lately into water conservation programs. Heidi Hoven sees the shorebirds as a key indicator species. "We have so much more to understand about what their needs are. In these changing times, it's really highlighting the need to understand these things quickly. The last two winters may have bought Utah a little time, but no one in the West is depending on another good snow year next year." She says.
