If you’ve ever heard an almighty ‘squawk’ while you’re out and about in the city, chances are it was the call of a yellow-crested cockatoo, whose distinctive, high-pitched screeching can be picked up even amid the din of Hong Kong’s urban activities. Now, the race is on to save this endangered bird species and conserve its unique population.
University of Hong Kong postdoctoral researcher Astrid Andersson is leading a mission to install artificial nest boxes specifically designed for the yellow-crested cockatoo in trees around Hong Kong in hopes of encouraging reproductive behaviour. Her goal is to distribute 50 such nest boxes across the city to help bolster our cockatoo population.
Native to Indonesia and Timor-Leste’s rainforests, the yellow-crested cockatoo was once a widespread species. A surge in popularity in the 20th century created a global demand for them as cage pets, giving rise to an unsustainable trade that saw more than 96,000 birds exported from Indonesia in the 1980s and 1990s. It was around that time that the yellow-crested cockatoo was introduced to Hong Kong in large numbers.
The number of this species in the wild has now dropped to between 1,200 and 2,000 globally, marking the yellow-crested cockatoo as critically endangered – but against all odds, a rogue bunch in Hong Kong has proliferated over the decades, making up 10 percent of the remaining global population. It is believed that the imported birds escaped or were released, and they have subsequently made a home for themselves in the city’s urban parks, often seen swooping around the Central and Western districts of Hong Kong Island.
Appearance-wise, Andersson’s nest boxes are designed to mimic the natural hollows found in trees, which the yellow-crested cockatoo favour for homing as they do not build their own nests. Such hollows have been harder to find across the city due to damage caused by inclement weather and tree pruning cleanup actions. Andersson also hopes the nest boxes will help to deepen researchers’ understanding of the species and give them an opportunity to closely study their reproductive behaviour and strategise methods to improve conservation of the birds worldwide. She estimates there are about 200 yellow-crested cockatoos left in the city, but she worries for their future, not only from challenges due to habitat loss and climate change, but also because of black market demand.
Selling and trading yellow-crested cockatoos caught in the wild has been outlawed since 2005, but the birds are reported to fetch huge sums on the black market, so illegal poaching greatly endangers the feral population. While breeders are allowed to sell yellow-crested cockatoos bred in captivity, they must carry a licence under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to do so. At this time, there are no CITES-registered breeders in Hong Kong, so possible home-breeding of the birds is not documented, creating uncertainty around breeding for commercial purposes.
If Andersson’s nest box project goes well, it could serve as a blueprint to revive the global yellow-crested cockatoo population and save them from the brink of extinction.
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