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Lake Beeac
Lake Beeac, a hypersaline endorheic lake, is located beside the small town of Beeac in the Lakes and Craters region of the Victorian Volcanic Plains of south-west Victoria, in southeastern Australia. The 560-hectare (1,400-acre) lake is situated about 19 kilometres (12 mi) northeast of Colac, and its high salinity gives it a milky-blue colour. The lake is part of the Ramsar-listed Western District Lakes site, and enjoys international recognition of its wetland values and some protection for its waterbirds.[5] WildlifeDespite its extreme salinity, Lake Beeac supports brine shrimp which in turn feed water birds such as the banded stilt and the red-necked avocet.[5] Birds have been known to come from as far as Siberia and China to eat the lake's shrimp.[6] The lake is an important habitat for wetland water-birds. The lake forms part of the Lake Corangamite Complex Important Bird Area, so identified by BirdLife International because it sometimes supports globally important numbers of waterbirds.[7] HistoryBetween the late 1860s and the 1950s, salt works at Lake Beeac and other nearby lakes produced commercial quantities of salt.[5][8] The Melbourne spice merchant Henry Berry established a salt works at Lake Cundare, just north of Beeac, in 1868 which produced salt by a boiling and crystallising process. The works produced a fine salt for domestic consumption under the label "Tower of London". Production ceased in 1895.[9] Lake Beeac was the main lake in the area used for the collecting of naturally crystallised salt during the summer months. This process produced a coarse salt that was sold for agricultural and industrial purposes. Production depended on the weather: during the hot dry summer of 1921, 3000 tonnes were produced, but in a wet summer no salt at all could be collected. Commercial production ceased in 1954, by which time cheaper production elsewhere had made the Lake Beeac salt uneconomical.[10] See alsoReferences
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