Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge

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Reflections from Lower Klamath: Waters That Shaped Us, Futures We Must Protect

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Reflections from Lower Klamath: Waters That Shaped Us, Futures We Must Protect

Mount Shasta, snow-covered, loomed in the background. Stretched out before me, marshlands sparkled, and hundreds of white-faced ibis, Wilson’s phalaropes, black-necked stilts, and long-billed dowitchers brought the landscape alive as they twirled, probed, and pranced in pursuit of breakfast. Hundreds (maybe a thousand) red-winged blackbirds winged overhead. The site? Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge that straddles the Oregon-California border.

Restoring Klamath Basin And Its National Wildlife Refuges To Wildlife Havens

Restoring Klamath Basin And Its National Wildlife Refuges To Wildlife Havens

Historically, the Klamath Basin has been a crucial part of the Pacific Flyway for migratory waterfowl, owing to its approximately 185,000 acres of wetlands attracting more than seven million waterfowl each year. The renowned ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson wrote that the Klamath Basin was one of the few places in the country where you could see more than one million birds on a given day. Unfortunately, given climate change and drought, that is no longer the case.