Black Cockatoos Are Starving In Western Australia

Today, I met Merlin, a young red tailed cockatoo who is being nurtured as an education bird at the Kaarakin Cockatoo Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre in the hills of Perth. Black Cockatoo Recovery Centre

It is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions when we wilfully allow our indigenous wildlife to be driven to starvation because of loss of habitat – drought, dieback, logging;  bush fires and prescribed burning have brought our cockatoos to the brink of extinction. The competition for food in remaining habitat puts enormous pressure on those pockets of vegetation. It is critical any planned logging in the South West is immediately halted and retained as habitat areas and food sources for these iconic birds.

Within the metropolitan area, land clearing for residential areas needs to be drastically controlled so that known feeding areas for black cockatoos are preserved and integrated into landscape planning for new developments – industrial, suburban and Government infrastructure. Documenting some of the poor planning decisions being made by State and Local Councils helps the community understand how ignorance, greed and lazy public officials are putting the very existence of these incredible birds at risk.

Today, I watched a white tailed black cockatoo use a gum nut for a cup – he dropped it into a water bowl, retrieved it and tipped it up to get a drink of water.  He did it several times – showing off a skill he has developed himself and he clearly enjoyed the attention we gave him. White tailed black cockatoos are smart, funny and highly intelligent.

While red tailed cockatoos eat almost exclusively seeds from Eucalypt trees (given sufficient food sources), white tailed cockatoos have a wider palate and their food includes the flowers, nectar and seeds of many native plants. Using Google on line, some posts suggest the sweet almond trees grown in orchards can produce up to 1% of poisonous bitter almonds which are deadly and bitter almonds may yield from 4–9 mg of hydrogen cyanide per almond.  In addition, the flowers of the almond contain a highly toxic nectar and this may also contribute to their deaths when the birds are driven to eat other than their natural diet, which traditionally does include the flowers of local vegetation .The Almond Tree’s Secret Weapon

In Western Australia, there are no commercial almond orchards under the supervision of the Almond Board of Australia (ABA) which are sufficiently mature to be producing fruit.  Having made extensive contact with the almond grower bodies in Australia, there is no definite scientific evidence to confirm commercially cultivated almonds in Australia are responsible for bird deaths. On the contrary, in the Eastern States some species of birds are increasing in numbers as orchards expand.  But black cockatoos are not smart enough to know that green (unripened)  almonds from very old trees, grown before the present carefully selected varieties were available, may contain sufficient cyanide to kill them in their malnourished state.  As many as twenty birds at a time have been found dead, old birds and young ones, when they have been forced out of their natural feeding areas and seek food sources in backyard trees, where the crops not part of their traditional diet.

Red tailed and white tailed black cockatoos, when allowed to pursue their natural way of life, live quite separately and apart from each other.  The very fact that we see red tailed cockatoos in the city is undeniable evidence of their need to seek food outside their traditional sources – because their forest habitat is systematically being destroyed.

Long lived, our magnificent black cockatoos must be given every chance to feed and breed. It takes a gum tree over 200 years to grow big enough to provide nesting hollows. Trees that were saplings when Captain  James Stirling first sailed up the Swan River, before this city was established, are the nesting trees of today.

What can you do NOW to help?  The very first steps are to register your concerns in the public media about the loss of habitat  – because it is monitored by those who have the authority (as well as the responsibility) for protecting them. We urge you to leave your comments on media websites. The Government is NOT to be trusted – when at places like Helms Block, logging commenced three weeks earlier than previously announced, and community actions saved several hundred hectares from being logged.

It is also critical that you sign any Petition from Conservation Council of WA which allows you to tell the Premier of Western Australia on a direct basis how you feel about the need to protect these birds.

When your great, great grandchildren ask you about our magnificent black cockatoos, will you be able to hold your head up high and speak of how you fought to save them in a time of great crisis?  We must speak up now!