Date: 6/30/26 7:54 pm From: via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: [Tweeters] evening grosbeaks in urgent trouble on hwy 20
Hi Tweeters,
I drove to the north cascades on Saturday for a hike, and I saw an absolute horror.
Something absolutely horrible is happening right now on the North Cascades highway (SR-20). Definitely hundreds, if not thousands of little birds are getting murdered. Right after the highway starts to climb up after the Diablo reservoir and reaches the sub-alpine areas until it goes back down after the Washington pass, these little birds are attracted to the road for some reason. Flocks of birds are sitting on the median line, rumble strips and sides. There are many birds and they are just getting plowed through by the car drivers. I have never seen something so horrible before. There are dead birds on the road every few feet. Literally. I have also never seen birds being so attracted to the roadway before either. I drove this stretch of the highway at 15mph for an hour and made several other drivers mad (their problem!), and I didn't hit any birds, but it is just horrible carnage out there regardless. Looking online, I found out the birds are called evening grosbeaks and several people think that most likely birds are on the road because they are attracted to the road salt. If that is true, at least we can do something to save them. Why is WSDOT still using road salt? Who can we complain to ban road salt??? This is unacceptable.
I see many other people reported the same situation online, looks like evening grosbeaks are getting killed by thousands since Hwy opened.
1. I have already messaged WSDOT on their social media, but they didn't respond. 2. Is the guess even correct, and the birds are attracted to the salt? If so, why I have not seen this problem in years past. 3. Most important: what can we do to help the birds?
