![]() They require large, old hollow-bearing trees to breed in, which can be up to 300 years old. For these birds, not just any tree hollow will do. ![]() These trees are a key part of the puzzle. Palm cockatoo splintering a stick to make his nesting platform. What does that look like? It means cool burns to prevent extreme bushfires burning down their ancient nesting trees – plus avoiding any further felling of these priceless trees. We urgently need a better understanding of why they have such trouble breeding, to figure out if it’s similarly bad across all three populations, and to work out how palmies use the landscape.Īt the same time, we have to get better at managing the landscape they need to survive. Saving them from extinction will take a concerted effort. The downside is that if one population is in trouble, the others are unable to pick up the slack and provide breeding reinforcements. For example, the famous drumming display mainly occurs in the eastern population, where the birds also make distinctive calls including a unique human-like “hello”. Zdenek, Author providedĮach group has developed “cultural” traits which have not spread between the populations. Researcher Christina Zdenek with a palm cockatoo. Our research on palm cockatoo genetics and vocal dialects reveals their three major populations on the peninsula are poorly connected, meaning little movement of birds between groups. Without knowing who’s who, major problems with breeding success could be masked by an ageing population, given their life expectancy is up to 60 years. To date there has been no successful capture of palmies to mark them via leg bands or GPS trackers. One challenge in studying these birds is the difficulty in identifying individual birds over time. Read more: Bird-brained and brilliant: Australia's avians are smarter than you think And who knows if that fledgling will make it to sexual maturity at five or more years old? On average, this means each breeding pair successfully raises just one chick every 10 years. Of the offspring, only 23% of their chicks live until they fledge. They’re losing habitat due to poor fire management and ongoing land-clearing, but they also have extremely low breeding rates, with females laying a single egg every two years. In Australia they only live on the Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland, where they face a perfect storm of threats and vulnerability. Palmies, as we call these charismatic birds, hail from an ancient lineage on the parrot evolutionary tree. One of the crucial palm cockatoo hollows burning down in Cape York. There are concrete ways to protect these magnificent, elusive birds by conserving habitat and their all-important breeding hollow trees, by reintroducing cool burns (including unburnt areas), and finding out more about these special parrots. They could all but disappear from Australia in our lifetimes. Given the current population is estimated at just 3,000 birds, it is likely to drop to as low as 150 birds. Our analysis predicts a severe decline from 47% to as high as 95% over the next half-century. This week, the Queensland government moved this species – also known as the goliath cockatoo – onto the endangered list, due to our research on palm cockatoo populations over more than 20 years. Sadly, the “Ringo Starr” of the bird world is now threatened with extinction – just as many other parrots are around the world. They create drumsticks to make a rhythmic beat. In this series, we’ve invited them to share their unique photos from the field.Īustralia’s largest parrot, the palm cockatoo, is justifiably famous as the only non-human animal to craft tools for sound. Zdenek, The University of Queensland and Rob Heinsohn, Australian National UniversityĮnvironmental scientists see flora, fauna and phenomena the rest of us rarely do.
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