| Lake Beeac | |
| Location: | Western District Lakes, Victoria |
| Pushpin Map: | Australia Victoria |
| Pushpin Relief: | 1 |
| Pushpin Label Position: | bottom |
| Pushpin Map Alt: | A map of Victoria, Australia with a mark indicating the location of Lake Beeac |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Victoria |
| Coords: | -38.2051°N 143.6165°W |
| Type: | Endorheic, hypersaline |
| Outflow: | Evaporation |
| Basin Countries: | Australia |
| Area: | 560ha |
| Reference: | [1] [2] |
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 560ha lake is situated about 19km (12miles) 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.[3]
Despite its extreme salinity, Lake Beeac supports brine shrimp which in turn feed water birds such as the banded stilt and the red-necked avocet.[3] Birds have been known to come from as far as Siberia and China to eat the lake's shrimp.[4] 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.[5]
Between the late 1860s and the 1950s, salt works at Lake Beeac and other nearby lakes produced commercial quantities of salt.[3] [6] 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.[7]
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.[8]