On the 7th of December, NACC’s Biodiversity Project Officer Kahree travelled south to Mandurah to attend Birdlife WA’s Black Cockatoo Symposium to learn some more about how to help our endangered Carnaby’s Black Cockatoos here in the Northern Agricultural Region.
The event was opened by a very warm Welcome to Country by Bindjareb elder Franklyn Nannup, who shared some insights into the knowledge the Noongar people possess about the cockatoos and the timing of seasons. This was followed by presentations from nine expert speakers of various specialisations.
Merryn Pryor, WA Black Cockatoo Project Coordinator for Birdlife Australia, began with a very uplifting talk about the importance of community in black cockatoo conservation, such as by getting involved in revegetation projects and collecting data on population estimates with the annual Great Cocky Count. Next year, this will be held on the 3rd of April for anyone who would like to participate!
Dr. Kris Warren, Professor of Wildlife, Zoological and Conservation Medicine at Murdoch University spoke about black cockatoo health, population demographics and ecology. Interestingly, black cockatoos will use irrigated lettuces as drinking bowls, without damaging the lettuce at all! She also made some suggestions into future directions for research, such as modeling movements and habitat use.
Dr. Michael Craig of UWA spoke about the importance of increasing and protecting water sources in the Darling Scarp for encouraging Karak (Forest Red-tailed black cockatoos) to come to new areas of the jarrah forest to feed and breed. This is particularly important in a warming, drying climate.
Francis Smit, Executive Officer for Landcare Serpentine-Jarrahdale (SJ) Inc. spoke about the evolution of the widely-used Cockatube ® artificial nesting hollow design to better accommodate black cockatoos long-term, and how they were used to assist in the short-term replacement of natural hollows lost over east following the devastating 2019/20 bushfires.
Rick Dawson, Director of Australian Black Cockatoo Specialists, flowed on from Francis in emphasising the use of artificial hollows as a short-term solution for promoting Carnaby Cockatoo breeding, using the research and recent artificial hollow installations at Coomallo Creek as a prime example of how successful they can be.
Dr. Sam Rycken, Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo Coordinator at Birdlife Australia, spoke about Birdlife’s breeding and fieldwork program for the black cockatoos and encouraged willing volunteers to come along to help out with fieldwork.
Megan LeRoy, Coordinator of Healthy Farms and Habitats at the Peel-Harvey Catchment Council, shared PHCC’s Protecting WA Black Cockatoo project. This multifaceted project aims to enhance and restore black cockatoo habitat, including restoring remnants of the Federally-listed endangered Banksia Woodlands of the Swan Coastal Plain Threatened Ecological Community. The project also plans to increase the resilience of nesting habitats in the Peel-Harvey Catchment in the long-term.
David Mitchell, Regional Leader Nature Conservation for the Swan Region at the DBCA, gave an overview of the State’s management of formal conservation reserves and responsibilities for the black cockatoos of the southwest.
And finally, Dr. Justine Parker, Environmental Scientist at Alcoa Australia, provided an outline of Alcoa’s Community Black Cockatoo Recovery Project. This project has been running since 2019, involving efforts made by Alcoa during their site assessment, mine planning, and rehabilitation stages by Alcoa to reduce impacts on black cockatoos at their bauxite mines along the Darling Scarp.
It was a day of hot topic discussion, curveball questions and insight into real-world black cockatoo conservation, and it was fantastic to be in a room full of experts, land managers, and conservationists. Carnaby Bill also made an appearance whilst conference-goers enjoyed a healthy lunch.
This project is supported by NACC NRM through funding from the Australian Government’s Environmental Restoration Fund.
