Urban cockatoos mask statewide crisis

Some of the pine plantations have also been cleared and the remainder are likely to disappear to meet the housing needs of a rapidly-growing capital city. Flickr: Ken and NyettaWA Museum’s ornithology curator says black cockatoos, which once flocked to the Swan Coastal Plain in tens of thousands, could be extinct within 50 years.
A red-tailed black cockatoo in flight. (Credit: Peter Campbell/Wikimedia) They are the forgotten victims of the bushfires in southwest Western Australia - species of native animals and birds that may have been completely wiped out.
“We’ve designed those hollows on measurements we’ve taken of actual nests and then we did quite a bit of experimentation trying to find ways to keep bees out of wooden nests using different insecticides and all sorts of designs."—Professor Johnstone. Image by davidfntau.
A group from Murdoch University and the WA Museum have successfully encouraged a threatened cockatoo to breed for the first time in the metro area.