Sometimes, cormorants and even a single muskrat come to feed on carp at Fife Wetland Preserve on the west bank of the Jordan River in Salt Lake City. Other birds, especially those like pelicans and western tanagers using the river as a migratory corridor, will plop down on the pond for a rest on their journey.

A visit on Wednesday, though, revealed obvious human impacts to the so-called nature preserve. A burn scar from an out-of-control illegal campfire marks the northeast side of the property. Staff members of the city’s Public Lands Department were mowing vegetation, some of it native, in another section.

Down by the pond at the center of the small preserve, two gravel ramps end at waterside areas enclosed by wire baskets filled with rocks, known as gabions. They create a boundary between the gravel area and the water.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rock baskets line the bank at Fred & Ila Rose Fife Wetland Preserve in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 8, 2025.

Poplar Grove resident and Salt Lake Fish and Game Foundation board member Dan Potts wants to remove them to make it easier for people, especially kids, to see the pond and the life around it.

“If we’re looking for a nature preserve to encourage people to be infatuated with nature,” Potts questioned, “don’t you want them interacting with nature, get their hands wet, or go down to the edge and see the fish swim by?”

A restoration project

The property, at roughly 900 South and the Jordan River, is surrounded by more active parks built for people, like 9th South River Park, Jordan Park and the International Peace Gardens. It also sits at the intersection of the city’s two major off-street multiuse paths: the Jordan River Trail and the 9-Line Trail.

The preserve is meant to offer something different, a place where visitors can slow down and simply view nature in action. However, since major construction on the wetland ended in 2017, the property has struggled with overuse related to homelessness and recreation, making it a less-inviting place for the wild animals it aims to attract.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ducks swim at Fred & Ila Rose Fife Wetland Preserve in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 8, 2025.

Improvements are planned for Fife, starting with the removal of the gabions, aiming to make it a better place to interact with nature and reduce the number of people cutting through it.

The preserve was once a part of an east-west railroad line owned and operated by the Oregon Short Line and, later, Union Pacific. The company handed over the property to Salt Lake City in 2007, but its restoration history doesn’t start until after the 2010 Chevron oil spills in Red Butte Canyon, when Utah’s capital was awarded mitigation funds. With some of those funds, the city started to plan for the installation of a man-made oxbow lake at this bend in the Jordan River.

Before the river was channelized to reduce flooding in the Salt Lake Valley, it routinely meandered back and forth season to season, creating small lakes cut off from the main stem of the waterway. Those natural waterbodies provided habitat for many of the plants and animals that call the valley home or migrate through it.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ducks sit on an island at Fred & Ila Rose Fife Wetland Preserve in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 8, 2025.

The almost 8-acre property, despite its challenges, still hosts a wide variety of plants and animals. In particular, the city’s native plants program seems to be bearing fruit: Native cattails and bullrush line the pond’s banks instead of invasive phragmites. According to the city’s management plan for the preserve, which was last updated in 2021, more than 60 plant species can be found there.

“It is often underrated,” Great Salt Lake Audubon board member and neighborhood resident Anne Terry said. “It is a really great place to see, especially during migration season; a lot of very cool birds come through there that are using the Jordan River as a migratory corridor.”

Terry, a frequent visitor, has seen birds as large as great blue herons and, in the winter, as small as dark-eyed juncos and chickadees.

Human impacts

Despite its draw for some wildlife, Potts believes the preserve isn’t living up to its name because human encroachment scares off many critters. People experiencing homelessness have periodically camped in the preserve. Trash dots the property.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A grocery cart with trash inside is seen at Fred & Ila Rose Fife Wetland Preserve in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 8, 2025.

While dogs and bikes aren’t allowed at Fife, signage, physical barriers and enforcement are lacking, Potts said. Dogs, which look like predators to birds, disturb avian habitats and dissuade adults from building nests on the property, according to Terry.

Those riding on the 9-Line and Jordan River trails might not know to avoid the preserve.

“One of the opportunities and challenges that our natural lands team is faced with is how to balance wildlife and ecological benefits and habitat within the city in an urban environment where we know we have a lot of urban uses,” Tyler Murdock, deputy director of the Public Lands Department, said. “Whether that’s people experiencing homelessness or bikes or dogs or just people wanting to recreate, and so, we have a lot of places where we’re trying to balance those on a regular basis.”

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A man walks his bike along a path in the Fred & Ila Rose Fife Wetland Preserve in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 8, 2025.

Potts said nearby parks and trails should be able to shoulder the burden of recreation and heavy use, instead of the preserve.

“Why can’t we have something right here in the middle of all of that that’s special?” Potts asked. “Why can’t we have a gem in the middle of all this?”

Making the preserve more wild

A small improvement project planned for the property aims to remove some of the human-installed features of the site. Some of the gabions are due to come out, making it easier for people to engage with birds bobbing on the water and fish swimming in the pond.

The Salt Lake City Council earmarked $100,000 for the project in last year’s budget for major projects, so depending on how expensive it is to remove the rock baskets, the city may opt to improve the pond’s inlet and outlet systems to boost water quality and give carp a way in and out of the area.

It’s possible some split-rail fencing along the preserve’s main path could come out, too, and the city could add fencing at the property’s entrances to reduce dog and bike access.

Murdock said Public Lands plans to complete the improvements this fall.