This iconic species has now been listed as endangered
Palm cockatoos (Probosciger aterrimus) are only found in Australia in the remote Cape York Peninsula.
There are fewer than 2,000 believed to be living in the wild due to poor reproductive rates and habitat destruction from land-clearing and climate change.
The Largest
The Palm Cockatoo is Australia's largest parrot by weight and can grow up to 65cm long. It has one of the largest bills of any parrot (only the hyacinth macaws is larger)
The Lowest
The Palm Cockatoo has the lowest breeding success rates reported for any species of parrot. The female palm cockatoo only lays one egg every second year.
The Rockatoo
Meet The Rockatoo!
The male palm cockatoo is a bit of a rockstar and has a knack for making "drumsticks" out of branches to bang out a beat on tree trunks - to mark territory and attract a mate!
The Palm Cockatoo Housing Crisis
Due to the large size of the palm cockatoo they need very large nesting hollows that can only be accommodated in trees of around 300 years of age.
Building a nesting hollow is complex and slow process for nature -
First a tree trunk must be hollowed out by termites and fungi that entered the tree through a small fire scar.
Then, a cyclone needs to twist the top of the tree off, exposing the centre of the trunk that slowly erodes away via rain. This creates a hollow large enough for palmies to nest in.
Because of this process, Palmy hollows are estimated to take more than 100 years to form. However, once the centre of the tree is gone it becomes more vulnerable to intense fires and strong winds. This means Palmy nesting real estate is hard to find and maintain in Cape York, and is also heavily fought over by the birds.
What are we doing to help?
People For Wildlife has partnered with palm cockatoo expert, Dr Christina N. Zdenek - who has been studying this species since 2008 and devoted 15 years to working with indigenous groups in Cape York.
We have successfully recieved funding support from the Queensland Government's Threatened Species Research Grant program (round 2) to enable us to begin the project and start filling knowledge gaps for applying palm cockatoo recovery and management.
This funding will be used to support Dr Zdenek’s important research. We will conduct nest site surveys, capture audio data of Palmy chatter to develop a call recogniser, and be installing nest cameras - to record Palmy family life and to learn why nests fail.
To help with the rockatoo real estate crisis, we will cut fire breaks around nest trees and build artificial nesting hollows to create new homes. We will test three types of artificial hollows: a resin-based option, a chainsaw carved option, and a tree-enhancement option.
© Photo by C.N.Zdenek
Hollows are estimated to take over 100 years to form naturally.
Extreme bushfires are resulting in destruction of nesting hollows.
© Photo by C.N.Zdenek