North Victorian Wetlands

The North Victorian Wetlands, also known as the Kerang Wetlands, comprise an extensive series of over 100 freshwater, brackish and saline lakes and swamps on the floodplain of the Loddon River where it enters the Murray valley, in the vicinity of the town of Kerang, in northern Victoria, south-eastern Australia.

They support populations of endangered Australasian bitterns and near threatened blue-billed ducks.

They sometimes support over 1% of the world populations of freckled ducks, straw-necked ibises, black-fronted dotterels, banded stilts and red-necked avocets.

[3] Other birds recorded as sometimes occurring on the wetlands in relatively substantial numbers include black swans, Pacific black ducks, grey teals, Australian shelducks, Australasian shovellers, pink-eared ducks, hardheads, black-backed bitterns, Australian white ibises, hoary-headed grebes, Eurasian coots, sharp-tailed sandpipers, red-necked stints, marsh sandpipers, white-headed stilts, double-banded plovers, red-kneed dotterels, red-capped plovers and whiskered terns.

The wetlands were so recognised because of their great importance to waterbirds, supporting large numbers of endemic and migratory species, and serving as a drought refuge, as well as supporting rare or vulnerable plant species.