Current view: Text account
Site description (2001 baseline):
Site location and context
Lake Tunis is a large, shallow lagoon, possibly a former mouth of the Medjerda river, once connected to the sea, but now separated from it on the eastern side by the coastal dunes on which Carthage and La Goulette stand. Tunis, the capital, is situated on higher ground to the west of the lake, and is gradually spreading all round it, joining up with Radès on the southern side. The lake is bisected by a ship canal and motorway. In the northern half of the lake is the island of Chikly which has a ruined Spanish fortress on it. The southern half of the lake includes the former salt-production pans at Radès/Mégrine. The lake formerly received most of the sewage effluent and rainwater run-off from Tunis, but in the 1960s and 1970s, a clean-up operation was carried out, with waste-water being piped to a treatment station at Ariana, and circulation of water in the shallow lake improved. In the 1980s, most of the northern shores of the lagoon were reclaimed for urban expansion, destroying all natural habitat. The same has occurred in the late 1990s in the southern half of the lagoon, and the saltpans have been closed and filled in. The current ornithological status of the lake is uncertain, as the reclamation work on the south of the lake is still in progress, but it is likely that it will retain very little of its former ornithological interest, although some birds originating from nearby Sebkhet Sedjoumi and Ariana may still occur.
See Box for key species. Other wintering waterbirds found on Lake Radès include many hundreds of
Podiceps nigricollis (a species rarely found in such numbers elsewhere in Tunisia),
Casmerodius albus,
Ardea cinerea,
Plegadis falcinellus,
Platalea leucorodia,
Tadorna tadorna (200–2,000),
T. ferruginea,
Anas acuta (500–800),
A. clypeata (1,000–2,000),
Aythya fuligula,
A. ferina,
Fulica atra (500–4,000),
Himantopus himantopus,
Larus genei,
L. ridibundus,
L. cachinnans and
Sterna albifrons. The island of Chikly has breeding colonies of about 70 pairs of
Egretta garzetta and about 100 pairs of
Larus cachinnans which breed at the base of the ruins, together with the occasional
Tadorna tadorna, and with
Falco peregrinus and
F. tinnunculus in the ruins themselves. Elsewhere, around the shores of the lake, there were formerly extensive breeding colonies of
Sterna albifrons and
Glareola pratincola, with good populations of
Charadrius alexandrinus,
Himantopus himantopus and
Burhinus oedicnemus; it is unlikely that many of these breeding waders will survive the recent reclamation.
Non-bird biodiversity: None known to BirdLife International.
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
The site is a Hunting Reserve while the island of Chikly is also a Natural Reserve. The reserve is, however, poorly wardened and there is much disturbance from people, dogs and rats, so that breeding birds rarely succeed. The whole of the lagoon has undergone extreme change in ecological status, which was perhaps inevitable because of its proximity to the capital, and ornithological interest has decreased steeply in the last 20 years.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Lac de Tunis (Tunisia). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/lac-de-tunis-iba-tunisia on 23/12/2024.
