People ‘just picking up’ starving WA cockatoos as burglars target nests

It was a “bloody warm” morning on November 21 when Rick Dawson went to check his nests. Well, not his, precisely.

The properties Dawson oversees lie around Comallo Creek, 50 kilometres inland of Jurien Bay, Carnaby’s black cockatoo breeding heartland and one of the most comprehensively studied breeding sites in the state.

Dawson’s work as director of Australian Black Cockatoo Specialists revolves around providing and monitoring artificial nesting hollows to replace the dwindling number of trees that once served this purpose. The resulting mix of natural and artificial hollows is what Dawson calls “Cockatoo Club Med.”

But it’s been no holiday at this resort.

The lack of autumn rain following WA’s hottest ever summer of 2023-2024 caused an unprecedented food shortage, causing the latest start to a breeding season ever recorded.

Dawson clearly recalls what happened next: seeing not the expected downy nestlings, but “carnage”.

A cat or cats had discovered a new food source and repeatedly returned, Dawson and the accompanying scientist and government wildlife officers saw as they carried their ladder from hollow to hollow.

They knew as soon as they saw the scratch marks on each trunk, but still had to climb up and verify.

“Not this one, not this one,” Dawson remembers thinking.

“I have been trying to make a difference to an endangered species. To see the destruction wrought by one cat …”

L-R: Triple One above a nest; The hoped-for sight; The remains found instead. Credit: Rick Dawson

In these hollows, installed after a bushfire wiped out 16 natural tree hollows, not just nestlings were killed as is more usual for cats, but numerous eggs were cracked open and six breeding mothers killed.

The fate of Female 210-16111, nicknamed Triple One, remains to be seen: “A model mum, an absolute star” who has been studied for 11 years, averaging double the birthing rate of her peers. Her nestling was killed, but Dawson hopes she made it out.

“Nestlings die all the time, it’s part of life, but those adults are irreplaceable,” he says.

Such attacks had not been seen in the area for a decade, and Dawson says they were likely another result of the climate conditions.

“We believe that hot year, the lack of rain and food, the lack of mice, meant a lack, then, of owls,” he says.

“The cats were struggling for food sources.”

Dean Arthurell, whose Bindoon property is a smaller Carnaby’s breeding site, home to 19 chicks in the past two years, knows the cat stalking his population’s water source is a pet.

Arthurell, who runs the not-for-profit Carnaby’s Crusaders, set up a water source for the birds now being targeted by a roamer whose owner identified it from footage on a local social media page, but said the cat would not tolerate being kept inside, committing only to placing a bell on its collar.

He now hears the bell around the breeding site at night.

Chittering, Arthurell’s shire, was one of about 20 Perth local governments that have tried to implement cat containment laws but been disallowed by a government committee because they go further than the powers of the state law.

Under the state Cat Act, the most councils can do is designate areas such as nature reserves and parks as cat-prohibited.

The government said it had commenced “scoping” its next review of the Act which would “identify further opportunities for initiatives to support responsible ownership.”

This water source is a competed-for resource in Bindoon. Credit: Dean Arthurell

“Many local governments are already undertaking proactive work in this space including through ‘build your own catio’ workshops and associated grant programs,” a spokesperson said.

The WA Liberal Party did not respond to a request for its position.

The birds that did successfully bring chicks back to Perth found despite their fewer numbers there was not enough food. The birds are ever more visible in Perth suburbs as they search for seeds.

Kaarakin Black Cockatoo Conservation Centre founder and board member Glenn Dewhurst has seen nothing like this in the nearly 20 years since he founded the facility.

“We have never had birds come in before with nothing wrong with them except they are starving,” he said.

“People are just walking up to them thinking they are injured, but they are just lying there [unable to move].

Dean Arthurell’s not-for-profit Carnaby’s Crusaders has a long history of rehabilitating the birds, producing and installing artificial nesting hollows on private properties, but was formalised in 2021, and has fledged about 200 birds in the past four years.Credit: Carnaby's Crusaders

“They are also picking up young birds throwing themselves out of the nests because they are cooking inside them. One walker in the northern jarrah forest reported seeing seven baby carcasses on the ground. Some have to be euthanased because they are too far gone.”

The government has given $70,000 to help Perth Zoo and Kaarakin vets deal with the influx, but there are calls for the government to address the starvation itself.

‘Where we draw the line is laughable’: To feed or not to feed

Dean Arthurell, of the Bindoon breeding site, while advocating for emergency large scale planting, has also submitted a proposal to the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions for supplementary feeding of the birds.

His plan, designed to address departmental staff’s concerns about the risks of disease transmission, pests and vermin, predation and human interference in a feeding program, and outlines how a pilot program could be managed to address such risks, is backed by prominent Perth botanist Professor Kingsley Dixon and horticulture expert Sabrina Hahn.

Arthurell noted the 80-plus “cockitrough” bird watering stations designed by the Town of Victoria Park installed throughout the metropolitan area.

“These birds are drinking from artificial water sites, breeding in artificial hollows, and foraging in urbanised gardens – basically living on handouts,” he said. “For us to draw the line at feeding them is laughable.”

An environmental scientist WAtoday spoke to, who wished to remain anonymous due to their position in the public service, said starvation was a greater nutrition concern than the risks associated with feeding.

They said humans had been interfering with this species since European settlement by introducing pine plantations, which immediately became a food source, then clearing almost all of the plantations, while clearing the majority of the birds’ traditional breeding grounds in the Wheatbelt.

Wildlife vet Professor Kris Warren, from the black cockatoo research team at Murdoch University, has not commented specifically on the feeding proposal, but cautions against members of the public taking matters into their own hands and urges a “strategic, rather than a reactive approach” to ensure that further harm is not done in any program designed to help.

“It is also critical to not lose sight of the reasons behind the ongoing loss of black cockatoo foraging habitat, to do all we can to protect the birds’ remaining foraging habitat in the Perth-Peel region, and revegetate to give them more of their natural food plants, including banksia, hakea, marri and jarrah, and additionally macadamia trees,” she says.

Dawson, of the Comallo Creek breeding ground, believes unsanctioned feeding in some areas has caused the “rubbery bones” that have forced him to euthanise several individuals.

The range of the three black cockatoo species endemic to Western Australia.Credit: Environmental Resources Information Network

“Providing a good safe watering place in the metro area where they can drink without predation or car strike is important and a good thing … [but] feeding wildlife is very problematic,” he said.

He said proposals to feed penguin nestlings on Penguin Island were a different matter.

Dewhurst, of Kaarakin, is also against supplementary feeding.

WAtoday contacted two further scientists with expertise in black cockatoos who were reluctant to disclose their thoughts either on or off the record.

‘Address the cause’: Death by a thousand cuts

If differing on feeding, all scientists are united in a call to address habitat loss.

A 2013 Carnaby’s black cockatoo recovery plan, the kind made for many endangered species, named 10 years as its natural evaluation point but no evaluation or new plan has been released.

This plan had estimated its own implementation costs at $7 million, not counting volunteer efforts, but it was confirmed in parliament in 2021 that recovery plans do not come with dedicated funding but rely on volunteer resources.

The department says a new plan is being drafted alongside the federal government and public comment will be sought on the draft.

A spokesperson says a range of recovery actions have been funded and implemented under the existing plans for black cockatoos, building critical knowledge that will be used to guide ongoing efforts, including research into roosting, diseases, breeding, food plant species and artificial hollows.

As drafting of new plans continues, so does clearing.

Alcoa and South32 are planning major expansions of their bauxite mines in the breeding region of the northern jarrah forest, both plans recently prompting community protests.

A South32 spokesperson said the Worsley mine had strict approval conditions to avoid and minimise habitat impacts in its 3855-hectare expansion and would observe protected areas and buffer zones for the species affected, as well as undertake rehabilitation work, honour its 12,300-hectare offsets commitment and continue supporting black cockatoo research projects.

An Alcoa spokesperson said the company protected areas of high conservation value including black cockatoo nesting trees; and that vegetation species used in its rehabilitation provided valuable food sources for species including black cockatoos within a few years of establishment, some species within four years, other species within seven.

The other side of the coin is clearing of foraging habitat in Perth for housing, with the government recently approving the removal of 23.5 hectares of foraging habitat and 257 potential nesting trees to up-zone Maida Vale.

BirdLife WA estimates 12,000 hectares of vegetation is “relentlessly” cleared in WA a year, more than four times the area of the City of Sydney, and has released a guide to help West Australians have their say on clearing decisions.

Next summer, Rick Dawson will be watching closely to see if Triple One, who lost her 11th nestling to the free-ranging cat, returns.

But the odds seem stacked against her and her peers, whose population had already declined 50 per cent from the 1940s to 2013, and a further 25 per cent in the decade to 2022 – all before the devastation of last summer.

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