This is bird note.

In the salt flats of Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, the indigenous Taino people found a way to

harvest salt long before Europeans arrived.

But this unique ecosystem isn't just useful for sea salt production, it's also vital

to shorebirds.

The salty lagoons are full of brine shrimp for the birds to eat.

Oscar Diaz helped establish a protected area for birds here to ensure they could keep

using the salt flats.

Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge is only about 1,800 acres, but wait a second, it's

not about size, it's about the ecological importance of the areas that you manage.

While Cabo Rojo being so small, it's very, very important for the purposes of conserving

migratory and resident shorebirds.

Oscar is a retired biologist.

He says the refuge was created thanks to local residents banding together, and it'll

take everyone to make sure that crucial habitats like this one stay protected.

Everybody in Puerto Rico have to be conscious of the important resources that we have in

this little piece of island, and the ones that we are basically destroying almost every

day, almost every day.

Learn more about Puerto Rico's one-of-a-kind bird habitats on the Threatened Podcast.

Join in your favorite podcast app or at birdnote.org.

I'm Ari Daniel.