Sites - Important Bird Areas (IBAs)

Ornithological information See box for key species. An extremely important wintering area for shorebirds and gulls, notably Haematopus ostralegus, Limosa lapponica, Numenius arquata and Larus cachinnans/L. argentatus. The site may also be important for breeding herons and egrets including Ardea goliath and Ardeola grayii. The adjacent plains and woodland have a typical Baluchi avifauna with several Indo-Malayan species at or near their western limit, notably Gyps bengalensis, Francolinus pondicerianus, Athene brama, Dendrocopos assimilis and Acridotheres tristis. Common winter visitors include Phylloscopus inornatus humei.

Site description A 55 km stretch of coast along the Straits of Hormoz, c.10-70 km east of Bandar Abbas, incorporating three river deltas. The site includes extensive intertidal mudflats (over 1 km wide), significant stands of mangrove at the river mouths and along adjacent creeks, long sand beaches, low sandbars and sand spits, and two large shallow bays, Khor Tiab and Khor Kolahy, near the mouth of the Rud-i Minab in the east. The rivers flow only after erratic rainfall in the interior, usually in winter. The waters of the Rud-i-Shirin and Rud-i-Minab are fresh, but the Rud-i-Shur is somewhat brackish. Mangrove Avicennia marina occurs at the river mouths, and fringes the tidal creeks. The adjacent arid plain supports a sparse woodland of Acacia, Prosopis, Ziziphus and Tamarix with large areas of bare, sandy flats. Land ownership is public. There are a few small settlements, generally with date gardens. Fishing is important.

Populations of IBA trigger species

Protected areas

Protected area	Designation	Area (ha)	Relationship with IBA	Overlap with IBA (ha)
Deltas of Rud-e-Shur, Rud-e-Shirin and Rud-e-Minab	Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar)	45,000	protected area contained by site	45,000

Habitats

Land use

Other biodiversity None known to BirdLife International.

Management considerations There is no legal protection, though the area lies within a Ramsar Site (20,000 ha) designated in 1975. There is some cutting of mangrove for fuel and grazing by domestic livestock. There may be some pollution from the nearby port of Bandar Abbas, and oil pollution is a constant threat.

References Carp (1980), Ramsar Convention Bureau (1993), Scott (1975b, 1976a,c), Summers et al. (1987).

Contribute  Please click here to help BirdLife conserve the world's birds - your data for this IBA and others are vital for helping protect the environment.

Recommended citation  BirdLife International (2013) Important Bird Areas factsheet: Rud-i-Shur, Rud-i-Shirin and Rud-i-Minab deltas. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 23/05/2013

To provide new information to update this factsheet or to correct any errors, please email BirdLife