On this episode, we talk with Clarissa Casper. Her article in Cornell Lab’s Living Bird Magazine is titled "Dry Times at Utah’s Great Salt Lake Threaten a Crucial Migratory Stopover." The article is additionally published in All About Birds. She says the biggest gathering place for migratory shorebirds in the Intermountain West is drying up. But where there’s still water, there’s still hope of keeping what’s left.
Clarissa Casper is writer/editor at the American Bird Conservancy and was the 2025-2026 Rachel Carson Science Journalism Fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. She is a graduate of Utah State University and was the UPR/Salt Lake Tribune Cache Valley reporter.
Sharon Montecino’s master's thesis at USU is titled "Understanding the Impact of Environmental Change on Shorebird Abundance and Distribution Across the Intermountain West Over the Past 30 Years." She earned a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources Engineering from the University of Chile, served as a Coastal Solutions Fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and coordinated the Waterbirds and Wetlands Program for the Chilean NGO ROC.
