The wetlands provide habitat for about 20,000 waterbirds – including birds from as far afield as Siberia and Alaska.
Birds are divided into three groups: raptorial land birds (uccelli terrestri rapaci), other land birds (uccelli terrestri non rapaci), and waterbirds (uccelli aquatica).
The suburb contains a mix of jarrah, marri, sheoak and banksia woodland as well as wetland areas with flooded gums and paperbarks, which provide habitat to a wide range of waterbirds and mammals.
It is a natural habitat for shellfish, migrating and wintering waterfowl, colonial nesting waterbirds, beach-nesting birds, migratory shorebirds, raptors, and rare plants.
Other waterbirds with recorded counts of over 1000 at some time include the Australian Shelduck, Pacific Black Duck, Australasian Shoveler, Grey and Chestnut Teal, Purple Swamphen, Eurasian Coot, Red-necked Stint, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Silver Gull and Whiskered Tern.
In last years it bought more than 80 ha of wetlands in IBA/SPA Senne, which is the most important breeding site for some waterbirds in the Slovakia (for instance Eurasian Spoonbill) and the most important stopover for migrating waders in Slovakia.
It was founded in 1954 as the International Wildfowl Inquiry and the organisation was focused on the protection of waterbirds.