Wetland Drainage: Page 2 Endangered Species Handbook

It's Too Late

Wetland Drainage: Page 2

Thousands of years of drainage, pollution, diversion and overuse of the rivers and wetlands in the Middle East have destroyed once verdant areas such as the site of ancient Babylon in present-day Iraq. The single exception, until recently, was the 6,000-square-mile delta of reeds, lagoons and marsh south of the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers on the Persian Gulf in Iraq. This wilderness maze was inhabited by the reed homes of the Shiite marsh Arabs (Hedges 1993). They fished from small boats woven from marsh plants, a lifestyle unchanged for thousands of years (Dugan 1993). After the 1989 Persian Gulf War, Iraq's President Saddam Hussein ordered that the swamps be drained to vanquish the Shiites, who had opposed his government (Hedges 1993, Lewis 1993). The Iraqi portion of these marshes has also been polluted by oil spillage from the war. Within a few years, approximately 90 percent of these ancient wetlands were drained and soon dried out in the desert sun. Observers flying in small aircraft have documented that these wetlands now resemble dusty fields.

The best known animal resident of Iraq's marshes may be Maxwell's otter (Lutra perspicillata maxwellii), named for the charming otter who inspired the story Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell (1961). This male otter had been captured in these marshes and brought by the author to the British Isles after many misadventures in trains and hotel rooms. When examined by zoologists, he was determined to be an endemic and distinct race of the smooth-coated otter. The fate of Maxwell's otters may not be learned for many years to come. Other victims of the destruction of Mesopotamian marshes may be the birdlife: several million waterfowl wintered in the wetland (BI 1993). Endangered and rare birds that winter here include the dalmatian pelican, pygmy cormorant (Phalacrocorax pygmaeus), marbled teal (Marmaronetta angustirostris), white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca) and slender-billed curlew (Numenius tenuirostris), according to BirdLife International (1993). Two endemic breeding birds are also at great risk. The Iraq babbler (Turdoides altirostis) and the Basra reed warbler (Acrocephalus griseldis) are restricted to these marshes in southeastern Iraq and adjoining southwestern Iran. The latter bird is listed as near-threatened in Threatened Birds of the World (BI 2000). Although no status surveys have been made in the breeding range of the Basra reed warbler, the number of these birds seen in wintering habitat in Kenya has declined in recent years (BI 2000). A small portion of these marshes remains in adjoining Iran, but it cannot support a fraction of the wildlife that inhabited the Iraqi marshlands.

The worst oil spill in history took place in the Persian Gulf as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, enraged at losing the war with Kuwait, opened and set afire that country's oil wells to spill 500 million gallons of oil into the delicate Gulf (Earle 1995). This represented 45 times the amount released by the Exxon Valdez. It added to the 250,000 barrels of oil released into the Persian Gulf every year for the past decade. The 1991 spill killed cormorants and other sea birds, sea turtles and dugongs. The fires belched toxic chemicals into the air and water in thick black clouds that darkened the sky at noon. Every plant and animal within many miles became coated with black soot. Marine scientist Sylvia Earle witnessed a bird in the midst of this hellish landscape as it swooped into a pool of oil, lured by a struggling dragonfly. "The bird barely moved, succumbing at once to shock, the slimy embrace gluing feathers, clogging nostrils, searing bright eyes, snuffing life" (Earle 1995). The 400-mile coastline of Kuwait, an expanse of marshes and mangroves, became covered in thick black oil, leaving only a few areas of untouched beaches protected by a causeway (Earle 1995). Tens of thousands of migrating shorebirds died in this oil along with a host of invertebrates and fish, and since much of the oil sank and attached itself to sand and mud, the oil killed for many years (Earle 1995). The most common coral in the Persian Gulf, staghorn, released eggs that were killed by the oil, and most of the adult coral in the region of the spill died or bleached (Earle 1995).