A top a branch of a tree charred black, a turkey vulture surveys the desert marsh for prey. Where death transpires, the vulture follows: the animal kingdom’s disaster tourists.
Before the most recent fire at Clark County Wetlands Park wiped out dozens of trees and acres of brush, a great horned owl’s nest in that tree was a visitor favorite. The furrow-browed owls were acclimated to the celebrity, letting passersby get close and snap pictures.
Yet owls are not the headliners that outsiders might expect to see in Sin City. Nor is the Las Vegas Wash.
The wash is a mighty system of wetlands that carries upward of 200 million gallons of treated wastewater and runoff each day into Lake Mead. 
“If you look up wetlands in a high school textbook, they’re nature’s kidneys,” says Jason Eckberg, an environmental biologist at the Southern Nevada Water Authority. A network of dense vegetation, weirs and rocks are a second line of defense for water filtration.
The wash’s endpoint of Lake Mead is ringed by Hoover Dam, a brutalistic and man-made tourniquet that some say tamed flows of the wild Colorado. The wash, still man’s manipulation of water, has an opposite effect, offering a much-needed respite in the harsh Mojave Desert for hundreds of migratory bird species, fish and mammals like coyotes.
A stream’s rebirth
When the community rallied behind the wash in the ’90s, a dozen organizations poured money, love and care into a waterway that’s always been there to support life.
The Southern Paiute, or Nuwuvi, used the floodplain and seasonal springs for thousands of years as a travel, hunting and trade route between the Spring Mountains and the Colorado River. Temporary hunting camps rose in what’s now known as Wetlands Park in east Las Vegas. 
But modern restoration efforts were born in 1998, after a particularly bad algae bloom invaded the Las Vegas Bay, the spot where the waterway meets Lake Mead. By definition, desert washes are dry, only filling up after the occasional storm.
Today, with six wastewater plants, the wash is effectively an urban river, and an impressive feat for a drought-stricken desert city whose future is inherently tied to an ever-declining reservoir.
Eckberg has overseen the wash project for 18 years, restoring 13 miles of the channel to a riparian area with lush vegetation. The water authority has built 21 erosion control structures like weirs to protect the shoreline. 
Mother Nature has delivered magnanimous results: Observers have documented 252 bird species when bird surveys began and the most recent survey in 2023. That includes three birds that represent entries on the Endangered Species Act list: the Yuma Ridgway’s rail, Southwestern willow flycatcher and yellow-billed cuckoo.
It’s a physical manifestation of the adage “if you build it, they will come,” Eckberg says.
Fires threaten wildlife gains
One Las Vegan who knows the wash better than most is David Anderson, 61, who leads birding tours throughout the region.
His clientele are usually established birders from across the globe, who have in mind what they want to see. East Coasters are itching to see a roadrunner, or Asian tourists angle for a glance at hummingbird species not found back home.
Anderson is a living encyclopedia of Southwestern birds. He moved to Las Vegas about seven years ago with his wife, found a love for birding and never looked back.
“An inland place that has this many bird species, it’s pretty unheard of,” Anderson says. “I’ll take an Uber someplace, and they’ll ask me what I do. And I say, ‘I’m a bird photographer, and I lead tours to look at birds and wildlife.’ And they’re like, ‘There’s more than pigeons?’ Even people that have lived here their whole lives, they don’t realize what’s right here.’ 
While the birds are his livelihood in more ways than one, the yearly threat of fire is omnipotent.
On a cool summer morning in August, Anderson knew where to go to show off the damage from a June fire. Midge bugs danced in sequence against the early light, cascading like snow as they fell near the steady stream of water.
Las Vegas has largely been spared from the despair brought on by wildfire, but brush fires at Wetlands Park are a given.
At the park, fire scars are on full display two months later, remnants of trees and bushes lining the sidewalks. 
“Meaty vegetation could come back within a year,” Anderson says. And he’s right. Even in a short regrowth period, reeds that resemble cornfields litter the barren fields below bare trees. Some plants thrive on fire, dropping seeds and sprouting when there’s finally less competition to grow.
“But it’s the trees; they’re much more of a valuable resource lost,” he adds. “You don’t have many of them, and they could take 10, 15 or 20 years to come back.” 
Las Vegas’ hot, dry future
Less rain and consistently hotter temperatures are in the cards for Southern Nevada, increasing the likelihood of fires.
“Some of that damage will take decades to repair,” says Chris Leavitt, a 75-year-old Las Vegas native who is the president of Friends of Wetlands Park. “As the stewards of the place, we have to try our best to take care of it.” 
Experts say the intense desert heat will shift bird migration patterns.
In many ways, the birds along the wash are adapted to the harshness. They sing shorter songs that are easier to hear over the rush of airplanes, Anderson says, and birds will pant like dogs to stay cool. 
Leavitt says she’s seen the wash transform over the past two and a half decades from a little-known birding spot to a palace for wildlife. She feels lucky to introduce residents and students to it almost every day.
“People think, from other places, that the desert is nothing,” Leavitt says. “They don’t think about a place that is so complex, and so well-adapted and with so much going on.” 
For its people, plants and animals to survive, water conservation through efforts like the wash must be in the DNA of desert cities like Las Vegas.
Now that weirs are built and native vegetation is in place, the wash mindset will transform from one of restoration to another of maintenance. Leavitt still finds herself discovering new species every day, and spreading the gospel of the wash to the next generation.
“In nature, there’s always a secret to uncover,” Leavitt says. ◆ 
