Sites - Important Bird Areas (IBAs)

Ornithological information See box for key species (some counts from the Karbala area are included). The lake is important for breeding Marmaronetta angustirostris, and holds huge numbers of wintering waterfowl. In January 1979 107,000 waterfowl were counted on Bahr Al Milh, even though only two points in the vast wetland area were surveyed, including very large concentrations of Podiceps cristatus, P. nigricollis, Phalacrocorax carbo, Pelecanus onocrotalus, Mergellus albellus and Fulica atra, while Lake Usathe held 30,500 waterfowl including good numbers of Phoenicopterus ruber, dabbling ducks and Recurvirostra avosetta. Pelecanus crispus was recorded at both lakes. Bahr Al Milh was listed as a wetland of international importance by Carp (1980).

Site description Bahr Al Milh is a very large, deep and brackish lake in a closed, sand/silt basin 95 km south-west of Baghdad, surrounded by desert and with a low cliff shore in many places. It was created in the late 1970s as a second storage reservoir (below Haur Al Habbaniya, site 016) to control floods on the River Euphrates. The salinity of the lake has been increasing since its creation and now stands at about 2.0-2.2%. There are many islands and peninsulas. Lake Usathe (also called Shithathah lake, 32°37'N 43°55'E, c.100 ha) lies a few kilometres from the south-east corner of Bahr Al Milh. It is a small, shallow, freshwater lake with some emergent vegetation. The surrounding area has some sandy cliffs and is sparsely vegetated.

Populations of IBA trigger species

Habitats

Land use

Other biodiversity No information available to BirdLife International.

Management considerations No conservation measures are known to have been taken. In the winter of 1991-1992, over 40,000 ducks and over 40,000 Fulica atra were estimated to have been sold in the markets of Karbala and Najaf, most of these probably having come from Bahr Al Milh and Haur Al Hammar (K. Y. Al-Dabbagh in litt.). In the 1970s it appeared that military activities and the use of the area for recreation might pose threats. Shrimp farming and the introduction of tilapia fish have both been proposed for Bahr Al Milh. No conservation measures are known to have been proposed.

References Carp (1975a,b), Ctyroký (1987), Scott and Carp (1982).

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Recommended citation  BirdLife International (2013) Important Bird Areas factsheet: Bahr Al Milh. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 25/05/2013

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