Walker Lake loon mercury study expected to get $250,000

Friday, July 9, 1999 | 6:52 a.m.

Both houses of Congress still need to pass the appropriations bill but Reid's staff is confident the mercury study funding will remain.

"The Carson River is loaded with mercury," Reid said. "What I'd like to find is that there is no mercury in the Walker River. This study will help determine if mercury is in the lake or somewhere else."

The Walker River is the source of water for Walker Lake, located about 70 miles southeast of Carson City just outside Hawthorne.

The money would help a team of loon experts continue studies on the bird started last year at Walker Lake. The plan next year is to install four to six transmitters on loons captured at the lake, said Mike Yates, the study's principal investigator.

The transmitters will allow scientists to determine where the loons come from and fly to before and after their spring and fall visits to Walker Lake.

Scientists also plan to implant transmitters on loons as they arrive at Walker Lake next spring. The team wants to sample blood from those birds as they arrive and then again three weeks later and determine if the mercury level has increased while they were at the lake.

Yates works for the Center for Conservation Research and Technology at the University of Maryland and Boise State University.

Yates said an estimated one-third of the 1,000 or so loons that migrate via Walker Lake are contaminated with mercury. The team found that one-third of the 26 loons sampled this year and last year had mercury.

"The levels we're looking at will not kill a bird outright, but it will definitely make them susceptible to other illnesses," said Yates, adding that mercury also affects the loons' ability to reproduce.