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I've been asked to forward this good article on by more then one member of the world's best email list. Kicking the dust on my local drying dam wall I forward pass this on to Dear Cap he Tan Tee Pee and All.
GUESS HOW MUCH FRESH WATER WE FLUSH OUT OF OZ EACH DAY?
Birds disappear as wetlands dry
By Amanda Hodge
Birds disappear as wetlands dry By Amanda Hodge AUSTRALIA'S reputation as a spectacular haven for waterbirds is in jeopardy, as an annual audit reported inland wetlands are the driest in 20 years and waterbird numbers are at distressingly low levels across the continent.
The Coorong at the Murray mouth, listed on the United Nations' Ramsar list for internationally important wetlands, is among the worst affected. Preliminary audit figures show waterbird numbers are down to just 3700 in the survey area this year, compared with 26,000 at the same time last year.
The annual waterbird survey, conducted by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, is the largest annual wildlife survey in the world covering 1500 wetlands across eastern and central Australia through Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia. "It's the driest I have ever seen it in the Coorong in 20 years; the wetlands are probably about 5-10 per cent of what they normally are at this time of year," NPWS principal research scientist Richard Kingsford said. "In 20 years of auditing, this is definitely the worst year. The question is, where have all the birds gone? We've flown half the continent and found very few." Within the Coorong's surveyed area, the aerial audit found two to three functioning wetlands in an area that, in a normal year, should support up to 40. But Dr Kingsford said the decline was Australia-wide -- an indication that the drought, compounded by years of over-development of rivers and wetlands, was seriously affecting Australia's biodiversity. Alm
ost all of the inland wetlands surveyed were either dry or drying up.
"In the wider picture, it's a barometer to what's happening to dependent biodiversity in our river systems, from native fish species to frogs and invertebrates," he said.
Where waterbirds would once have flocked to dependable wetlands along the Murray-Darling system during drought to bide their time until the next flood, that degraded system had little capacity to sustain the populations. "To go to a wetland lake and see thousands of birds is a real privilege and it's one of the things we should really be protecting because if we're not careful we won't see that any more," Dr Kingsford said.
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