By Peter Hannam
21
January 2019 — 11:50pm
Water
bird numbers at the world famous Menindee Lakes, near the site of this year's
massive fish kill, are in long-term decline, amid an ongoing failure to manage
water levels to match weather fluctuations, leading ecologist Richard Kingsford
says.
Bird
numbers at the lakes in far-western NSW peaked at about 140,000 in 1985,
according to surveys taken annually since 1983. For each good wet year since
that record, the bird count has been falling.
Water
populations "are a bit like a tennis ball...but the bounce is just getting
lower and lower" during good years, said Professor Kingsford, who is
director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science at the University of NSW.
The lakes
"are one of the hotspots for water bird in eastern Australia, and they've
been declining for some time".
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