Dick Rule of Mandurah Birdwatchers Group and Dr Mike Bamford

Mike Bamford and Dick Rule with Griselda Hitchcock, Judy Trembath and Brian Bucktin of PPG

Taken from Coastal Times, Friday,

March 2, 2001.

THE WATERBIRDS OF GOEGRUP AND BLACK LAKES IN THE PEEL REGION

PREFACE

Since the mid 1980s, members of the Peel Preservation Group have been keeping a watching brief on the chain of lakes in Barragup. The lower reaches of the Serpentine River flows through the largest of the lakes known as Goegrup; the other four lakes have various local names and in this report are referred to as the Black lakes.

Until recently, this lakes system was well known to generations of humans as a rich source of fish and waterfowl and, because the lakes were surrounded by thick growths of fringing vegetation and large trees, as a haven for other native wildlife and a source of plant foods.

In the last twenty years there has been a huge rise in the human population of Mandurah and its surrounds , posing possible threats to the lake's ecosystem in spite of some attempts at protection through System 6 and the Peel Region Scheme. The factors influencing the lakes include the opening of the Dawesville Channel in 1994 with consequent increase in tidal water levels, pollution of the Serpentine river causing blooms of Nodularia and other algae, insecticide spraying of the lakes to reduce mosquitoes and subdivisional developments around the lakes' edges likely to increase as new freeways and railways make Mandurah more accessible to the metropolitan area.