Photo: Peter Parks/Getty Imagesįurther causing concern is that at least 90 of the 150 plastic nest boxes used by the birds may have melted or been deformed by extreme heat, says Karleah Berris, manager of Kangaroo Island’s Glossy Black-Cockatoo Recovery Program.
“Whether this habitat loss is complete or patchy, we’re not totally sure,” she says.Ī fire damaged landscape on Kangaroo Island, January 2020. This includes every protected area in which cockatoo flocks occur on the western side of the island. “We think somewhere between 50 to 60 percent of their habitat has been affected,” says Daniella Teixeira, a conservation biologist at the University of Queensland, who has been studying these birds for the last four years. The birds live in seven main flocks, and 75 percent of the population lives in the western and northern parts of the island, where the fires have been particularly disastrous.Īlthough it’s still too early to assess the total damage, there is no question that the recent fires are a huge setback for the past two decades' conservation efforts. By protecting nest hollows from predatory possums, erecting artificial nest boxes, and planting food trees, conservationists helped cockatoo populations spike to nearly 400 individuals by 2016. In 1995, what is now considered one of Australia’s most successful recovery programs began. Originally, scientists thought the island’s she-oak woodland could support at least 600 of the birds, but a population count of merely 150 individuals in the early 1990s caused alarm. On Kangaroo Island, though, similar habitat remained intact, and by the 1970s, the subspecies had been effectively forced off of the mainland. Stands of mature eucalyptus trees, which provide the natural hollows the birds require for nesting, suffered the same fate. But starting in the 1800s, European settlers began wiping out large swathes of drooping she-oak trees-the seeds of which the Glossy Black-Cockatoos rely on for food-for agriculture and housing. With nowhere to go, resident species like the koala, southern brown bandicoot, pelican spider, and the critically endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart have all likely suffered major losses, but the island’s population of endangered Glossy Black-Cockatoos, a southern subspecies of the bird that has seen a comeback in recent decades, is also a major concern for conservationists.Ĭrow-size birds with brownish-black bodies and red tail bands, the cockatoos were once abundant across the southern mainland of Australia. Located off the southern coast of Australia, nearly half of this 1,700-square-mile island has been engulfed in flames since December 20, when fires first broke out on the western part of the island. “It’s just black sticks poking above the ground, and that’s about what’s left in certain areas,” says Gabriel Crowley, an environmental scientist at the University of Queensland in Australia.
On Kangaroo Island-one of Australia’s most treasured tourism destinations and a biodiversity hub-the impacts have been particularly devastating. So far, they’ve killed 30 people, and more than one billion animals are now feared dead. Fueled by extreme drought conditions and record temperatures, many fires continue to rage across the country. Populations have more than halved in the past 45 years and the Carnaby's cockatoo is now locally extinct in many parts of the central Wheatbelt, largely due to the loss and fragmentation of its habitat.Since September, hundreds of bushfires have blazed through Australia, leaving behind at least 24 million acres of charred land and skies polluted with smoke.
Both species are endangered and found only in Southwest Australia, and though they might live for 40-50 years, a large proportion of those birds that remain are past breeding age. This stunning bird is one of just two species of white-tailed black cockatoo found on Earth – the other is the Baudin’s cockatoo. The devoted father can fly more than 12 kilometres a day to feed his partner during egg incubation and their one chick stays at home with its parents for 18 months. It announces its arrival raucously and lives a highly social life, often in small flocks. Playful and seemingly always hungry, it breeds in large tree hollows in the Wheatbelt of WA in winter and moves to the Swan Coastal Plain to feed on native seeds and insect larvae for much of the year. A much-loved icon of Western Australia, this conspicuous and impressive bird, with its white tail panels and cream-coloured cheek patches, grows to about 60 centimetres in height. The personality of the Carnaby's black cockatoo is as big as the bird itself. WWF-Australia’s ‘My Backyard’ tool, and find out how well they’re being cared for. Did you know there could be Carnaby's black cockatoos or other threatened wildlife living near you? Discover what animals need protection in your local area using
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