Fresh Water Tilapia Adapting to High Salinity in Salton Sea

White Sands (?) @ Salton Sea State Recreation Area Shoreline

From afar, the Salton Sea looks very inviting: white sand, blue skies, diverse species of resident and migratory birds, wildflowers swaying beautifully, 

Wildflowers Blooming @ Salton Sea Shoreline

and sparkling blue sea that is bordered by desert mountains. It looks like a piece of heaven. A refuge for wildlife. 

White Pelicans Enjoying The Richness of Food (tilapia) @ Salton Sea

Heaven and refuge in the middle of the barren desert facing some of the harshest conditions.  Excited, I took off my sneakers and changed to walking sandals. With camera on hand, I started walking towards the shore. As soon as I reached what I thought to be a white sand shore, my feet felt the sharpness of the broken shells and bones. I finally realized my biggest mistake of taking off my sneakers for walking sandals.

Dead Tilapias on Salton Sea's Shore

What I thought as white sand were actually mostly broken barnacles and bones from millions of fish, birds and shells that had surrendered their lives to this accidental sea.

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More Dead Tilapias

In the 1920's, the Salton Sea was once California's busiest State Park, with more visitors than Yosemite National Park. It was a popular get-away for the rich and famous, and of celebrated Hollywood artists. The concern then was the danger swimmers may be facing from the 400,000 boats that crowd each year. But today, Salton Sea speaks of deep solitude, the thousand swimmers and boaters now gone.

Kayaker @ Salton Sea

The Salton Sea State Recreation Area now gets only a trickle of visitors, who come to enjoy hiking, fishing, boating, bird watching, swimming, and camping on the shores of California's largest accidental lake. Because this was an accidental lake without an outflow, the Salton Sea's salinity had an accelerated change that jeopardized some of the species in it. Many species of fish are no longer able to survive in this once diverse inland aquatic system. With the death of the many fish species in this lake, came the non-native fish, tilapia. How the tilapias came into Salton Sea is still not exactly known.

Tilapia are native to Africa but have been widely introduced worlwide into tropical fresh and brackish waters around the world. They are generally fresh water fish, but can withstand very high salinity such as in Salton Sea which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean. Tilapias are fast growing and breed rapidly, thus, despite their periodic deaths in the Salton Sea, still, an estimated 2 million tilapias exist in this shallow lake at Salton Sea.  

Extremely Dried Tilapia

Some tilapias die during winter when they can not tolerate extreme cold temperatures since tilapias are warm water fish. Sometimes, tilapias die in the summer when the heat in the desert rises so high depleting them of their essential nutrients. Fishing in Salton Sea is thriving, the tilapia population can be so dense that anglers get fish as soon as they reel in. Despite fishers catching ice chests-full of fish for days with no end, yet the fishing does not seem to slow down nor the tilapia numbers diminish. The variety of fish at the Salton Sea have declined with the continued rising of the salinity and other minerals. Ironically, what thrives now in this extremely high saline water are the fresh water fish tilapia. It is said that tilapia would be the last fish that can survive in the extremely salty water here because of their ability to adapt to the physical conditions surrounding them. Because of the abundance of fish, Salton Sea has attracted visitors for fishing. People grill freshly caught tilapia on shore and bring ice chests-full of tilapia home.

However, it's not only people fishing get to enjoy the tilapia in Salton Sea. Millions of birds flock into the Salton Sea annually because of richness of food. This accidental sea is their food haven. Today, the southern part of the Salton Sea is a Wildlife Refuge within the Pacific Flyway and is established for the protection of resident and migrating birds.  

In one of my next posts, I will share more about some of the resident and migratory birds that make Salton Sea their refuge. 

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