SA Glossy Black Cockatoo

SA Glossy Black Cockatoo

From March until September 2005, Don’t Bag the Environment supported The South Australian subspecies of Glossy Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus lathami halmaturinus) as it is listed as an Endangered species at the national and state level. It has disappeared entirely from the mainland, and is now restricted to Kangaroo Island. In 1995, the population was estimated to be less than 200 individuals and declining. In response, a Recovery Program was implemented 1995, which aims to ensure that a viable breeding population of the Glossy Black-Cockatoo persists in South Australia. Since then, this downward trend has been reversed by hardworking staff and volunteers, and numbers are on the increase. At the time of the campaign, 330 Glossies were counted in the annual census – the highest number for years!

The SA Glossy Black-Cockatoo requires high quality Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata) woodland for foraging, and large hollow-bearing eucalypts for roosting and nesting. The chief cause of the Glossy Black-Cockatoo’s decline in the 1900s was the large-scale clearance of large old gum trees and sheoaks for agriculture. In addition to the loss of habitat, research indicated that predation of eggs and young chicks by the Common Brushtail Possum was a major cause of nest failure. The Recovery Program is grateful for your help in addressing these threats by carrying out important actions such as re-establishing and protecting critical habitat on Kangaroo Island, and putting ‘collars’ of corrugated iron around nest trees to exclude possums.

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