Seagulls in Utah are California gulls (Larus californicus), an inland-breeding species that nests by the tens of thousands on islands in the Great Salt Lake. They are Utah’s official state bird, honored on Temple Square for their role in the 1848 “Miracle of the Gulls,” and their future is now tied directly to the shrinking lake that feeds them.1
What Happened in 1848
The Latter-day Saint pioneers reached the Salt Lake Valley in 1847 and were counting on the 1848 harvest to survive. In late May, swarms of Mormon crickets swept through the fields and began devouring beans, peas, and grain. Settlers fought back with brooms, sticks, clubs, tin pans, fire, and ropes dragged across the crops. Some talked about giving up and heading for California or Oregon.
Around June 9, 1848, large flocks of California gulls arrived. Witnesses said the birds cast shadows over the fields. The gulls gorged on crickets, regurgitated the indigestible parts, and came back for more, keeping it up for roughly three weeks. They did not end the infestation; crickets kept damaging crops for weeks afterward. But they blunted what could have been a total loss, and pioneer Henry Bigler wrote on September 28, 1848 that the gulls were a “God send.”
How Much of the Miracle Story Holds Up
The event became known as the Miracle of the Gulls, but the popular version grew in the retelling. William Hartley’s 1970 study “Mormons, Crickets, and Gulls: A New Look at an Old Story” found that many 1848 journals do not mention the gulls at all, focusing instead on a devastating late frost and severe drought. Historian Steven Harper has called frost “probably the biggest problem” that season, and the crickets themselves attacked only specific crops.
The first recorded use of the word “miracle” for the event came five years later, in a September 1853 General Conference address by Apostle Orson Hyde. Hartley concluded that because losses from all causes were already severe, “the actual physical benefit brought by the gulls could not have been as extensive as is popularly believed.”
Gulls eating crickets was not a single event, either. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ historical overview notes that gulls came to consume crickets “in almost every instance” in later harvest seasons, sometimes in greater numbers. It was the 1848 episode that “lived large in pioneer memory.” Historian Casey Griffiths has argued the narrative remains a valid “expression of faith” whatever its precise physical scale.
Why Gulls Live Hundreds of Miles From the Ocean
Visitors are often surprised to find “seagulls” in a landlocked state. The California gull is an inland breeder that nests on lakes and marshes across the interior West from Saskatchewan to Nevada, and the Great Salt Lake is one of its most important breeding grounds. An estimated 130,000 to 150,000 birds nested there between 1988 and 1991. A broader regional count including nearby colonies put the total near 93,000 to 98,000 breeding adults through the 1980s, a figure that held steady even as lake levels swung by 10 feet during the decade.
The birds depend on a specific combination of resources. The hypersaline lake produces huge quantities of brine shrimp and brine flies, which are seasonally abundant and highly nutritious. Because the lake is too salty to drink, the gulls also need nearby freshwater from the Bear, Weber, and Jordan rivers to purge salt and find freshwater invertebrates. They nest colonially on islands within the lake and on man-made levees and dikes. Nine islands provide significant nesting habitat, including Antelope, Gunnison, and Fremont.
They are also relentless opportunists. California gulls forage miles from their colonies, following plows across farm fields, scavenging at landfills and dumps, and feeding in flooded pastures and parking lots. The global population is estimated at around 1.1 million, and the species is classified as Least Concern by the IUCN and Secure (G5) by NatureServe.
State Bird Status and Legal Protection
The California gull was considered Utah’s state bird “by common consent” long before any law said so, as author George Earlie Shankle noted in his 1934 survey of state symbols. Formal designation came on February 16, 1955, when Governor J. Bracken Lee signed House Bill 51, sponsored by Salt Lake representatives Richard C. Howe and Jaren L. Jones. Utah’s state code lists the state bird simply as the “sea gull,” even though the species is formally the California gull.
Federal law also protects them. California gulls are covered by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which regulates the taking, possession, transportation, sale, and importation of migratory birds, and the species is listed in the MBTA’s implementing regulations at 50 CFR 10.13. Those protections flow from international conventions between the United States and Canada (1916), Mexico (1936), Japan (1972), and Russia (1976). The gull is not listed under the Endangered Species Act. Utah’s own history of shielding the birds runs deeper still, with early territorial and state laws against harassing or killing gulls that predate the state-bird designation by decades.
The Seagull Monument on Temple Square
The most visible tribute to the 1848 story stands on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. The Seagull Monument was sculpted by Mahonri M. Young, a grandson of Brigham Young, under a contract signed in 1912. Young placed it between the Tabernacle and the Assembly Hall so the nearby Temple would not overshadow it. Joseph F. Smith dedicated the monument on October 1, 1913.
The structure includes a granite pedestal weighing nearly 20 tons and a granite column rising more than 30 feet, topped by a granite ball supporting two gold-leafed bronze seagulls with wings outstretched. Four raised panels depict the cricket infestation and the birds’ arrival, and the whole monument sits within a pond and fountains. It is often cited as the first monument in the world dedicated to a bird.
The Great Salt Lake Crisis and What It Means for the Gulls
Utah’s gull colonies now depend on a lake in serious trouble. The Great Salt Lake has lost roughly 60 percent of its surface area, reaching its lowest recorded level in 2022. Since 2020 it has run an annual water deficit of more than one million acre-feet, driven largely by upstream diversions. Of roughly 3.1 million acre-feet that would naturally flow into the lake each year, about 2.1 million are diverted for agriculture, industry, and municipal use.
The effects on birds compound. Rising salinity harms the brine shrimp and brine flies that feed millions of migratory birds, and a significant decline in the brine fly population was documented in 2022. Surrounding wetlands are degrading as native grasses give way to invasive reeds that consume more water. As the lake shrinks, nesting islands become connected to the mainland by land bridges, letting coyotes and other predators reach previously isolated colonies. John Neill, an avian biologist with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, has noted that even a single coyote reaching a colony at the wrong time can cause the birds to abandon their nests. The exposed lakebed also releases toxic dust that threatens wildlife and human health.
The state has responded with money and structure. Utah’s legislature has appropriated more than $300 million for Great Salt Lake conservation across recent sessions, including $40 million for a Watershed Enhancement Program and $200 million for Agricultural Water Optimization in 2022 and 2023, and it created the Office of the Great Salt Lake Commissioner in 2023. In September 2024, Compass Minerals finalized a voluntary agreement under House Bill 453 to permanently donate more than 200,000 acre-feet of water annually to the lake and return nearly 65,000 acres of leased lakebed to state stewardship. A 2026 Great Salt Lake Preservation Program set aside $2.75 million to lease agricultural water for the lake, with split-season options that let farmers participate without permanently losing their water rights.
A coalition including Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, the American Bird Conservancy, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, and the Utah Rivers Council sued the state in September 2023, arguing it had breached its public trust duty to protect the lake. In March 2025, Judge Laura Scott of Utah’s Third Judicial District Court ruled that the state does hold a fiduciary duty under the public trust doctrine to protect the lake from “substantial impairment,” while declining to order changes to existing water rights. The case is ongoing.
Federal help is now in play as well. Governor Spencer Cox met with President Trump at the February 2026 National Governors Association conference, and on February 21, 2026 Trump posted on Truth Social: “Very important to save The Great Salt Lake in Utah. This is an Environmental hazard that must be worked on, IMMEDIATELY.” Cox requested $1 billion in federal funds, and the full amount was included in Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget, with final approval up to Congress. The administration also settled a century-long dispute over 22,000 acres of Great Salt Lake wetlands near Brigham City for $60 million.
The urgency is real. The year 2026 brought the worst snowfall on record for Utah, deepening the deficit. Experts estimate that an annual infusion of 500,000 to 800,000 acre-feet is needed just to stop the decline, and up to one million acre-feet for full restoration. Scientists have warned that the lake’s ecological integrity could collapse within five years if current trends hold.
The Crickets Are Still Here
The insects behind the original story never left. As of April 2026, young Mormon crickets were spotted weeks ahead of schedule in parts of Utah, including Box Elder and Millard counties, with the early hatch attributed to a dry winter and warm spring. State officials were surveying near Delta, Vernal, and in Sanpete and Iron counties. Infestations can damage alfalfa, corn, and wheat, harm cattle grazing land and wildlife habitat, disrupt beekeeping, and create highway hazards. Management now runs through the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, county governments, and the USDA, with a state fund helping subsidize insecticide costs for farmers. The gulls, 178 years after they became a symbol for doing this work naturally, get little mention in modern pest-management plans.