Cockatoos of Hong Kong

Lesser Sulpher crested cockatoo's (Cacatua sulpherea) in Hong Kong. Image by Davis Kwan. One great source of info about parrots in cities is Flickr. The popular image sharing website hosts thousands of pictures of parrots that people encounter on their travels and in their back yards. While most amateur birders have little regard for feral or naturalized parrot species because of their non nativeness, the general public is usually smitten with these charming characters that come to visit their garden feeders and city parks.

For decades parrot ornithological literature has listed feral and naturalized populations of Lesser Sulphur Crested Cockatoos (Cacatua sulphurea) in Hong Kong. Except for their presence little else is known about the lives of this species in the metropolis. Flickr hosts several photographs of this critically endangered species in Hong Kong. YouTube even has a video about them.

When we contacted, Charles Lam and Davis Kwan, the makers of many of these images we learned that there are probably over a hundred cockatoos in the city. Birdlife international red data book puts them at around 200.
They appear firmly established and are known to breed. This video records a pair at their nest, further evidence that this population is going strong.

Charles Lam and Davis Kwan mention that the cockatoos might have become established when the British army released their cockatoos, the Hong Kong governors personal pets, just before they had to surrender to the Japanese in WWII. This might very well be true but evidence shows that there are probably more then one species or subspecies of yellow crested cockatoos present. Evidence that there are more recent additions to the population. After 60 years any evidence of multiple subspecies in the founder population would by now have been lost in the interbreeding population.

Lesser Sulpher crested cockatoo at Hong Kong park. Image by Charles LamWebster, in Levers book "Naturalized birds of the world" motions them occurring in Happy Valley and the university. Viney, in the same volume also reports them at Victoria Barracks and on Stonecutters Island west of Kowloon. The videos of Charles Lam were made at Hong Kong Park. The Hong Kong Bird watching society also mentions them from Flower Market Road and Prince Edward near the Bird Street and unconfirmed reports of a colony in West Kowloon.

This population in Hong Kong might be the biggest group of Lesser Sulphur Crested Cockatoos in existence. The species is critically endangered in its homeland of Indonesia. That is the same category as the Spix macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii) is in. It has suffered a lot from trade for the pet industry.

Cockatoo in Hong Kong. Image by Charles Lam. These cockatoos show that even critically endangered and valuable species can find a save haven in urban areas and establish sizable populations. Although it would have been better if they were established in a city in their native area like Makassar or Manado.

This city cockatoo population is an example for one way forward for conserving the closely related and also critically endangered Philippine cockatoo (Cacatua haematuropygia). This species suffers from habitat destruction as its ancestral homelands are turned into farmland and urban areas. With a bit of help there can be urban populations of Philippine cockatoos established in the cities of this Island nation. If they do, this population can grow again and adapt to the changed realities of their native land.

Cockatoo love in Hong Kong. Image by Charles Lam