Mai Po Marshes
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Mai Po Marshes (traditional Chinese: 米埔濕地) is a nature reserve located near Yuen Long in Hong Kong. It is part of Deep Bay, an internationally significant wetland that is really a shallow estuary, at the mouths of Sham Chun River, Shan Pui River (Yuen Long Creek) and Tin Shui Wai Nullah. Inner Deep Bay is listed as a Ramsar site under Ramsar Convention in 1995, and supports globally important numbers of wetland birds, which mainly arrive in winter and during spring and autumn migrations. The education center and natural conservation area is 380 acres (1.5 km²) wide and its surrounding wetland has an area of 1500 acres (6 km²). It provides a conservation area for mammals, reptiles, insects, and over 350 kinds of birds.
The reserve is managed by the World Wide Fund for Nature Hong Kong since 1983; the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department has responsibilities for the Ramsar site as a whole. Deep Bay faces threats, including pollution, and rising mudflat levels that perhaps arise from intense urbanization, especially (in recent years) on the north, Shenzhen side of the bay.
In recent years, it housed over 55,000 migrating birds, including Saunders' Gull and a quarter of world's Black-faced Spoonbill population. It also has inter-tidal mangroves along with 24 traditionally operated shrimp ponds (called Gei Wai locally) to provide food for the birds. Mai Po Marshes receive 40,000 visitors annually.
But in February 2008, the Hong Kong government closed Mai Po for 21 days following the discovery of a Great Egret infected with H591, also known as avian flu. The closing marked the fourth in as many years and was consistent with the government's policy of closing Mai Po whenever an infection is discovered within a 3 kilometer radius of the premises. The World Wide Fund for Nature criticized the government, however, for what it called a discrepancy between the standards for closing Mai Po and the comparably less strict standards applied in urban areas. The World Wide Fund for Nature claimed that the government had not compensated it for lost income.
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