Port Hedland Saltworks Important Bird Area

Sharp-tailed sandpiper walking in shallow water

The site is an important area for sharp-tailed sandpipers

The Port Hedland Saltworks Important Bird Area is a 103 km² tract of originally intertidal land, now containing a saltern, lying about 20 km east of the port of Port Hedland on the coast of the Pilbara region of north-west Western Australia. The salt processing facility is operated by Dampier Salt Ltd, part of the Rio Tinto Group.

Description

The Important Bird Area (IBA) comprises a system of evaporation ponds, the intake zone where seawater enters, and the adjacent intertidal mudflats. The system includes levee banks and scattered mangroves. During low tides, waterbirds forage on the mudflats and along nearby creeks. During high tides, they move to the saltworks to continue feeding or to roost.^[1]

Port Hedland Saltworks

The Port Hedland Saltworks was purchased by Dampier Salt in 2001, and covers an operational area of about 91 km² of which the nine evaporation ponds take up 78 km². It has an annual production capacity of 3.2 Mt.^[2]

Birds

The site has been identified by BirdLife International as an IBA because it regularly supports over 1% of the world populations of red-necked stints and sharp-tailed sandpipers, as well as a population of the range-restricted dusky gerygone.^[3] It previously supported much greater numbers of several more species of waterbirds, especially waders, with counts of up to 66,800 birds present; however, since the expansion of the saltworks in the 1990s numbers have dropped to 5000-10,000. Species that have strongly declined since the 1980s are broad-billed sandpipers, Asian dowitchers, curlew sandpipers, red-necked avocets, banded stilts, Oriental plovers, Oriental pratincoles and white-winged black terns. Other species present include Australian bustards, bush stone-curlews, western bowerbirds, painted finches and canary white-eyes.^[1]

External links

Dampier Salt

References

1 2 BirdLife International. (2011). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Port Hedland Saltworks. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 22/09/2011.
↑ "Port Hedland". Dampier Salt. Rio Tinto. Retrieved 2011-09-22.
↑ "IBA: Port Hedland Saltworks". Birdata. Birds Australia. Retrieved 2011-09-21.

Salt

History	History of salt In the American Civil War International Salt Co. v. United States In Middlewich Old Salt Route In Chinese history Salt March Salt road

Types	List of edible salts Alaea Bittern Black lava Butter Celery Curing Cyclic Dairy Flake Fleur de sel Garlic Himalayan Iodised Kala Namak Kosher LoSalt Calcium chloride Pickling Potassium chloride Potassium nitrate Sodium nitrate Onion RealSalt Rock Sea salt Seasoned Sel gris Smoked Truffle

Food usage	Brine Cheese brining Salted foods Salt-cured meat Health effects Salt and cardiovascular disease

Commerce and industry	Salt Industry Commission Evaporation pond Production Salt mining Open-pan salt making List of countries by salt production

By region	In Cheshire In Ghana In Syracuse, New York

Culture	Salt in the Bible Salting the earth

Miscellaneous	Mineral lick Smelling salts

Category

Coordinates: 20°14′55″S 118°55′56″E / 20.24861°S 118.93222°E / -20.24861; 118.93222

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