Such events can often result in death or injury for the animals. In December 2011, thousands of the waterbirds, known as eared grebes, crash-landed in Utah during a storm and at least 1,500 died.
Grebes sometimes make stops in the state as they migrate. They need water to take off and generally search for lakes or ponds to land in. But during storms when bad weather forces them to land, they will seek to touch down on anything that appears to be water. In poor visibility conditions, surfaces that reflect light tend to look like water to a grebe.
These include large open recreation fields and parking lots covered in snow and ice, for example. The areas often have security lights on at night, and the grebes mistake these areas for bodies of water.
On Monday night, several eared grebes crash-landed in open areas of Iron and Washington counties, located in the southwest of the state, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) said in a Facebook post. The UDWR told Newsweek it had received reports of hundreds of grebes crash landing in these counties during the storm.
“Our latest estimate is that about 1,000 birds came down that night,” Adam Kavalunas, UDWR Southern Region Outreach Manager, told Newsweek. “Roughly 50-75 percent were released alive and the others, unfortunately, did not survive the crash.”
The UDWR said bird crash-landing events like these typically occur every year in the state. But a large number of birds all crashing at the same, as happened in the latest incident, is “more uncommon.”
Crash landings can be devastating for the birds involved, resulting in injuries or death, although these kinds of events do not typically affect enough individuals to have a significant impact on overall populations, the UDWR said.
Most of Utah was under severe weather warnings or advisories Sunday and Monday as a storm system moved into the state, bringing snow, wind, rain and freezing temperatures. The National Weather Service has extended some winter weather advisories into Wednesday for certain northern parts of the state, which are expecting more snow.
Eared grebes are small waterbirds measuring 12-14 inches in length that are found in western North America, Central America, Eurasia and Africa.
Starting in late summer, these birds leave their breeding grounds in the northern United States and southern Canada as part of a migration that sees them travel to warmer climates in the far southern U.S. and parts of Mexico.
The eared grebe is the most abundant species of grebe in North America. While the population is stable, it is vulnerable as it relies on two lakes during migration—Mono Lake in California and Great Salt Lake in Utah.
A study published in the journal Waterbirds in December 2021 looked at population surveys at Mono Lake between 1996 and 2018. Findings showed the lake was normally visited by over one million birds. But in 2014 and 2015, there was a “dramatic decline” with fewer than 400,000 at the lake. Researchers said the decline was the result of low levels of their primary food. Migration numbers at the lake remained low for a further three years.
The UDWR said anyone who sees an eared grebe on the ground, dead or alive, to contact its offices in Cedar City, Iron County, or Hurricane City, Washington County, so the birds can be removed or relocated.
One Facebook user, Shawn Alexander York, said in the comments that he had found two of the birds in Vernon, which is located in Tooele County, southeastern Utah, indicating that crash landings may have occurred in other parts of the state. York said he dropped the birds off at a local pond.
Update 12/29/22, 10:58 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include additional information and comment from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
