Hobsons Bay Wetlands in Good Health
A health check on one of the world’s key biodiversity areas, wetlands in the City of Hobsons Bay, has found that they are in good health and support large populations of birds. Numbers of the migratory Red-necked Stint, Curlew Sandpiper and Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, as well as the Australian Chestnut Teal duck and the Pacific Gull, all contribute to the area being recognised as internationally significant. Their numbers in this health check were found to be as high as when the area was declared a key biodiversity area in 2009.
A report released by the Hobsons Bay Wetlands Centre, found that many thousands of wetland birds have been seen in the Cheetham & Altona Key Biodiversity Area over the last two years, including many rare and threatened species. Large numbers of shorebirds, seabirds, ducks, egrets, spoonbills and terns have all used the area’s habitats to feed and rest in. An encouraging sighting was the presence of nearly 50 Swift Parrots in Truganina Park. This bird is considered critically endangered and breeds in Tasmania before migrating to the mainland in winter.
The score in this year’s Health Check has improved on previous years, largely due to the great work undertaken by the agencies that manage these sites, said the Chair of the Hobsons Bay Wetlands Centre, Marilyn Olliff. There has been a real recognition of the importance of these areas for birdlife, Marilyn said, and management activities in recent years have concentrated on revegetation, pest and weed control, restrictions on visitor access, and importantly for us, substantial involvement of the community in looking after our wonderful wild areas of importance to the world. Credit is due to the City of Hobsons Bay, Parks Victoria and Melbourne Water for their careful stewardship of our wetlands.
There is, however, more to do Marilyn believes, particularly the increased control of inappropriate access to important habitats by members of the public. We also need to establish a co-ordinated monitoring program that measures changes in all the important species across all the wetlands in the area, if we are to assess how well our management is working.
Unfortunately, it is not all good news as several species of migratory and Australian shorebirds using the Cheetham and Altona wetlands have declined over a period of ten to thirty years. Those migrating from their breeding grounds in the Arctic Circle have been impacted by loss of habitat in their stopover wetlands, such as in the Yellow Sea between China and Korea. The decline of wetlands in inland Australia is also considered to have adversely impacted on these as well as some other local species that move across the continent to take advantage of its variable rainfall.
Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are sites of world importance for biodiversity that have been assessed and designated by an international coalition of conservation bodies, represented in Australia by Birdlife Australia. The Cheetham & Altona KBA was designated in 2009 because of the populations of three bird species that were present in numbers in excess of 1% of their world populations. These species were the Red-necked Stint, Chestnut Teal and Pacific Gull. Since then, Birdlife Australia has identified three more species of migratory shorebird that are present in the Cheetham & Altona KBA in internationally significant numbers; the Curlew and Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, which breed in the northern Hemisphere, and the Double-banded Plover, which breeds in New Zealand and migrates to Australia in our winter. Birdlife Australia also identified two new areas in the City of Hobsons Bay that are important for shorebirds; Point Gellibrand and Greenwich Bay.
The Hobsons Bay Wetlands Centre took on the role of being the Guardian of the Cheetham & Altona KBA in 2020. Guardians have been appointed for a number of Key Biodiversity Areas in Australia by Birdlife Australia, and one of their roles is to undertake an annual Health Check. The Wetlands Centre is working with the City of Hobsons Bay and a number of other partners to establish a community facility where people can get in touch with nature and enjoy the wonder and benefits that the area’s wetlands and birdlife have to offer.
Read the full report here.