U. New South Wales Researchers Find Zero Birds In Northern Macquarie Marshes Wetland

[hatrack]

An aerial survey by UNSW researchers reveals that waterbirds and water have vanished from the northern reaches of Macquarie Marshes wetland, north of Dubbo. "This year we didn't find a single bird in Marshes' northern region. It was heartbreaking," says UNSW river and waterbird expert Richard Kingsford.

The decline in water and bird life stem from the present drought and long-term effects of over-allocating water for irrigation. These are causing catastrophic changes on the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin. It is the worst finding in the 25-year history of annual aerial waterbird surveys of eastern Australia done by UNSW scientists. The Macquarie Marches wetland is unique to Australia because of its large colonies of breeding ibis and egrets.

“In the 1980s we averaged 20,000 waterbirds from more than 20 species in the Marshes,” Professor Kingsford says. "In the 1990s that figure dropped to 5,000 birds from 13 species and since 2000 we have averaged around 600 birds from just nine species." Kingsford, who has just flown his 22nd year of the survey, believes the internationally-listed wetland is now collapsing. "This is one of Australia's most famous bird-breeding sites but we've had no bird sightings in the past seven years. Usually they breed every second year."

"The 2007 survey revealed that waterbirds and water were virtually absent from the Murray-Darling Basin and few wetlands held large numbers of waterbirds. Anyone who is privileged to see a lake with tens of thousands of waterbirds realises the significant toll that our overexploitation of rivers is causing," Kingsford says.

EDIT

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20073110-16516.html

[XemaSab]

1. Holy shit!

That's SHOCKING! :o

[pscot]

2. What's really shocking

is just how many rivers no longer run to the sea, like the Colorado and the Rio Grande, to name a couple close to home.

[XemaSab]

3. The Rio Grande runs to the sea

I have been to its mouth. :)

[pscot]

4. Who you gonna believe, Wikipedia or your lyin' eyes

"In the summer of 2001 a 100m wide sandbar formed at the mouth of the river, marking the first time in recorded history that the Rio Grande failed to empty into the Gulf of Mexico. The sandbar was subsequently dredged, but it re-formed almost immediately. Spring rains the following year flushed the re-formed sandbar out to sea, but it returned in the summer of 2002. Since then the sandbar has remained and now forms a usable land bridge between the US and Mexico. Ecologists fear that unless rainfall returns to normal levels during the next few years and strict water conservation measures are adopted by communities along the river, the Rio Grande may soon become extinct..."

I've never seen it, so I can't really dispute first hand evidence. Google earth shows a bar across the mouth, but the area is laced with a complicated network of streams, ponds, marshes and lagoons, some of which seem to connect to the Gulf. It's hard to tell. There are probably seasonal variations. Whatever the case, it is still a river system in trouble.

[XemaSab]

5. Here:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=25.944307,-97.162399&spn=0.069926,0.155525&t=k&z=13&om=1

Most rivers in California have sandbars across their mouths, so that seems normal to me. :shrug: