Another potent cause of decline is habitat degradation. Unfortunately poor land management practices have been the norm historically in Australia. Complete clearing of riparian (river bank) vegetation, stock trampling river banks, and massive siltation from these poor practices as well as poor practices in the catchment, can severely degrade and silt coastal rivers to the point of being uninhabitable for Australian bass. The Bega River in southern New South Wales is a particularly salutory example of a coastal river so stripped of riparian vegetation and so silted with coarse granitic sands from poor land management practices, that the majority of it is now completely uninhabitable by Australian bass and other native fish.