One responsibility of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) is to study and monitor the brine shrimp that live in Great Salt Lake. They took on this responsibility soon after several companies began collecting large numbers of brine shrimp cysts from the lake. By keeping track of the brine shrimp population, the UDWR makes sure that harvesters don't take too many cysts. The cysts that remain will hatch in the spring, providing food for millions of birds and producing the next year's supply of cysts for harvesting.
This video shows some of the work the DWR employees do to measure and track the brine shrimp population.
Jim Van Leeuwen is a Aquatic Biologist for Utah Division of Wildlife Resources who has been working on and around Great Salt Lake for over 10 years. He is interested in the workings of Great Salt Lake ecology.
Phil Brown is an aquatic biologist with the Utah Divison of Wildlife Resources' Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Program (GSLEP). Phil is involved with the extensive monitoring efforts of the Great Salt Lake's brine shrimp and limnology carried out by GSLEP. He believes the lake is a dynamic and greatly underappreciated ecological resource, and has enjoyed comparing it to the freshwater systems he was trained in.