Is it too late to save our iconic black cockatoos, or is there still time to act and protect these majestic birds?
Is it too late to save our iconic black cockatoos, or is there still time to act and protect these majestic birds?
With their distinctive call and striking feathers, black cockatoos are beloved by many Australians. But some species of black cockatoo will be extinct by 2050 due to major habitat loss.
In this episode, Sarah is joined by wildlife biologist Associate Professor Bill Bateman and filmmaker Jane Hammond to discuss the decline in WA’s three species of black cockatoo, and what needs to be done to halt their spiral towards extinction.
Associate Professor Bill Bateman, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University
Bill Bateman is wildlife biologist who researches animal behaviour, conservation and ecophysiology. He has published over 85 papers and book chapters, with research spanning invertebrates through to large mammals.
Bill’s research interests include investigating mating selection, species’ survival tactics and the ability of birds and animals to survive in urban environments.
He is a regular media commentator on animal behaviour, wildlife biology, urban ecology and conservation.
Jane Hammond, freelance journalist and filmmaker
Jane Hammond is a Perth-based documentary filmmaker who has worked for more than 25 years as a journalist. She writes, directs and shoots documentaries on environmental issues, social affairs, science and politics.
Her latest documentary, Black Cockatoo Crisis, captures the plight of WA’s black cockatoo species and has so far won five international awards.
This podcast is brought to you by Curtin University. Curtin is a global university known for its commitment to making positive change happen through high-impact research, strong industry partnerships and practical teaching.
Email thefutureof@curtin.edu.au
Host: Sarah Taillier
Content creator: Zoe Taylor
Recordist: Jayden Mclean
Producer: Emilia Jolakoska
Curtin University acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which Curtin Perth is located, the Whadjuk people of the Nyungar Nation, and on Curtin Kalgoorlie, the Wongutha people of the North-Eastern Goldfields; and the First Nations peoples on all Curtin locations.
OKAY by 13ounce Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 Music promoted by Audio Library.
Curtin University supports academic freedom of speech. The views expressed in The Future Of podcast may not reflect those of Curtin University.
Sarah Taillier:
00:00 This is The Future Of, where experts share their vision of the future and how their work is helping shape it for the better.
00:09 I'm Sarah Taillier.
00:11 With their striking feathers and distinctive call, black cockatoos are easily recognised by many Australians. These iconic birds are native to Australia. Western Australia is home to three of five species of black cockatoo. But these charismatic and adaptable birds are expected to be extinct by 2050, due to major habitat loss.
00:35 In this episode, I was joined by Bill Bateman and Jane Hammond. Bill Bateman is a professor in the School of Molecular and Life Sciences at Curtin University and Jane Hammond is an award-winning filmmaker. We spoke about why our black cockatoos are in crisis and what Australia can do to better conserve its native flora and fauna. If you'd like to find out more about this topic, you can visit the links provided in the show notes.
01:03 Firstly, Bill, can you tell us a little bit about our black cockatoos here in Western Australia. The types, their habitat, their characteristics, and the role they actually play in our environment?
Bill Bateman:
01:17 Yeah, so in Australia there's five species of black cockatoo. But in Western Australia we've got three of them. We've got the red-tailed black cockatoo and then two white-tailed black cockatoos. For a long time, the two white-tails were thought to be the same species, but now we separate them into Carnaby's and Baudin's. It's quite difficult to tell the difference between the Carnaby's and the Baudin's. Unless you're a real cockatoo expert, then you can become quite confident in which doesn't necessarily include me, about in the field, slightly different call. The Baudin's has a longer top beak, and these are big majestic birds. They're loud and dramatic, all three species. They feed on a variety of things, but mostly nuts, seeds, banksias, and also some insects, some bugs that are big grubs, which they get out of fir wood.
02:17 They're one of our sort of major parrots here in the southwest. So certainly anyone who's familiar with them will know that they will carry gum nuts around and drop them in other places, so they're spreading seeds. They're almost certainly implicated in pollinating banksias here when they go down and chew on banksias here, plants. So they're hugely important that we don't necessarily need to find an importance for them. We just should keep them because they're wonderful animals. But yeah, here in the southwest we're particularly lucky in having three of these magnificent birds.
Sarah Taillier:
02:51 Jane, we've just heard about some of the importance of these beautiful creatures that you already love and understand as well, but they're predicted to become extinct. The WA black cockatoo by 2050. Why is that?
Jane Hammond:
03:04 Oh, look, even sooner than 2050, much sooner. When the first analysis was out that they were going to be gone in 20 years, that was quite a few years ago now. So we are well down that track and nothing much has changed.
03:23 Basically, it's a number of factors that are impacting on these birds, the biggest one being habitat loss. So we are losing so much of these birds habitat to development, to mining in the forests, to the unrelenting march of suburbanism across our Banskia Woodlands. Now we have a critical point with Gnangara pine plantation, north of Perth, where these birds have become reliant on these pine plantations and they will all be gone within a couple of years. Attempts to stop that by Curtin University by Dr. Hugh Finn through the EPA to get a review, that's a long running story.
04:11 The EPA just announced about last week that it will review the changing land use and try and attempt, because of public pressure, to save these pines for the birds. But they won't do that until next year and then that itself might take a year. So by the time they come to a decision and say, oops, perhaps we should have kept these pines, they'll be well and truly gone. So its thing, after thing, after thing that we are seeing these birds impacted by and it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy, that we are watching this slide into extinction and our government's doing nothing.
Sarah Taillier:
04:52 What is that like for you when you are standing on the sidelines and you've been beyond the sidelines? Investing your own time and your own money to share the stories of these creatures? What is it like for you watching this play out?
Jane Hammond:
05:07 It's absolutely devastating, but we can turn it around. So that is the hope that I cling to, and that's why I made the film. If we act now, we can do something about this. But if we continue to go, "nah, who cares", then nothing will change.
Sarah Taillier:
05:26 And Bill, when we are talking about the red-tail cockatoos and Carnaby's cockatoos found in the Perth-Peel region, Jane mentioned that some have been forced out into the Gnangara pines area and some have adapted to eating pine cones. I was watching some munching away in some of the pine trees on campus at Curtin this morning. How is adaptability key, to the ongoing survival of many of our native species?
Bill Bateman:
05:53 Well, that's a really interesting question. It's something which I'm particularly interested in how animals become adapted to urban environments. It's true here on Curtin campus, we can see right outside our office, cockatoos feeding on pine trees. That's very interesting because we think of them as co-evolved, with the native plant species here. Many animals will adapt, many animals will start using resources, which we provide other food sources and things like that. Red-tail cockatoos and Carnaby's cockatoos are quite good at eating other sources of food.
06:30 I think that raises some interesting questions, which Jane's touched on, which is if we have this attitude which is, "oh, we're going to make things better for the cockatoos by getting rid of pine trees because they're non-native vegetation". We can't do that until we've already replaced that food source with replanting native food sources. So we can't just get rid of something and then hope that for 20 years they'll somehow muddle along, until anything else we've planted has grown up. They're using that because they have to use it. Yes, they're adaptable, but if there was plenty of native vegetation, they wouldn't be using it.
Sarah Taillier:
07:07 So it's adaptability by necessity-
Bill Bateman:
07:08 it's adaptability by necessity, as it were. Yeah.
Sarah Taillier:
07:11 Jane, you co-wrote, directed and produced Black Cockatoo Crisis, a feature documentary that looks at the plight of WA's black cockatoos. The film has collected 15 international awards so far. What motivated you? You touched on this earlier, but what motivated you to make this documentary?
Jane Hammond:
07:31 Yeah, look the more I found out about black cockatoos, the more concerned I became. When I'd finished, I came out of finishing another film called Cry of the Forest, where we looked at logging and the impact of carbon on our forest. The name of that film, Cry of the Forest was the cry of the Red-tail [cockatoo]. Having finished that campaign and it was successful, people took action and the government changed its mind and stopped logging. So social impact documentaries do work and community pressure does work. So having seen that, I thought, well, we've still got these cockatoos, we've still got carbon in our forests, we've still got Gnangara pines falling, we've still got massive road deaths, we've still got pesticide poisoning. So how do we put that together and tell the story of biodiversity loss that we are watching, on our watch, in my lifetime?
08:32 I started off, when I heard that there was going to be a campaign about this, offering to do a five minute short film. As soon as I started filming these birds and I looked in the editing suite at their beauty, at their character, at their cadence in their movement, everything about them, I was smitten and I wasn't before. I love all creatures, but there's something about the black cockatoo that is just amazing, especially the Carnaby's. So, I realised that for people to fall in love with this bird on screen, it needed time and time to tell the story, time to engage with the birds and lots and lots of visuals. So, that's what I set out to do. To remind everyone that these special creatures that we stop in the street and we look up. When you see them close up, and when you learn about their personalities and you hear them and you experience them, they're so magnificent. And what are we doing?
Sarah Taillier:
09:36 It's a rich answer. They are, there is something about them that is so majestic in the way they move, the way they sound, all of it. What was that experience like? Jane, actually going out and filming and gathering and collecting their story and the vision along with it?
Jane Hammond:
09:51 Oh look, absolute privilege, but also a very difficult task. It took me months and months to work out how best to film them. I'm a journalist by trade, and I've only just come to filmmaking the last few years and well, I'm no David Attenborough. So I had to learn how to make the most of these birds. The more that I learned, the more in love with these creatures I became and engaged in the community that is trying to save them as we have in the Gnangara Pines, the mega roost. Now, the mega roost is the gathering of up to 5,000 Carnaby's cockatoos. The largest gathering left on the planet, and they're meeting in these pine plantations.
10:42 This is something that Bill might be able to elaborate on, but there's something going on with these mass gatherings. It's just this cacophony of noise. The film starts off with that, a few minutes of just audio in the pine trees of this noise. I was waiting for it to come down, but it didn't when we were getting covered in ticks and mozzies, so we had to leave.
11:06 Yeah, this special place, these birds are talking and communicating and you see them in the morning as they fly off and they're going different ways and they're coming back not to the same spot, to somewhere else. Their level of communication must be so intense. And what BirdLife told me while I was filming was that we could get to a stage, where because they're so interdependent, because they're so social, that when we get to really low numbers, we will reach a tipping point. The old knowledge and the new knowledge will be gone and the population won't sit at a comfortable level, it will completely crash because they need to know in the landscape where the water is, where the food is, and that's how they're learning about pines. They're passing on that knowledge. I mean, you'd be able to-
Bill Bateman:
11:55 No, I agree. I also agree with you that smitten is the word, when you start getting to know these animals. Many flocking birds, the implication is that one of the reasons they flock at night is not just because of anti-predator stuff, but when you get these mega roosts, it's also about social information exchange. So you made the point that when they fly away, they're often flying away in different groups. And that's exactly it. There's often an exchange of information about where food is, where water is, and they're not necessarily talking to each other in the way that we do, but they're following individuals from whom they've picked up cues. So mega roosts are hugely important, we've got one mega roost left. Who knows, in the past there may have been multiple mega roosts of these birds, with multiple exchanges of information, and then birds moving between these roosts.
12:43 That introduces an interesting point as well, which I've noticed firsthand, is that telling people that these are endangered species sometime doesn't work because they're so visible and so loud. They fly around our city that people go, "yeah, but they're common". Yeah, they're common. So a flock of 20 flies over makes a dramatic noise and a dramatic sight. A hundred years ago, that flock would've been five or six times as big and there would've been multiple flocks. We don't see that because we weren't around a hundred years ago. But we see this flock of loud, dramatic birds. We think, "well, they're fine, they're everywhere, they're common".
13:19 So it's this slow incremental, wearing away of the baseline, which is where we start, go, well, that's acceptable to have a 100 instead of 500. It's acceptable to have 50 instead of a 100. It goes further and further down. That's why I think it's very shocking when you to tell people the reaction from people when you say "Yes, but with the decline, these are going to be gone before 2050". Many people simply don't believe that because they're around, they're visible and they're in your face.
Jane Hammond:
13:52 I mean, that is one of the problems for the cockatoo is that I'm seeing it, therefore it's not happening. That's a bit like the same argument with climate change for years, we've put up with that, "oh, but it's cold, the planet's not warming". It's that kind of mentality that we've got to get over. But also, you protect these species and they're an umbrella species, so you protect the entire habitat and the creatures that rely on that same habitat. The less popular ones, the little orchids, the little cute, furry things that we hardly ever see. So this is a story, not only for the cockatoos, but this is a biodiversity issue.
Sarah Taillier:
14:32 Have you seen that, Jane, in your documentary, being able to cut through some of that taking for granted of this species?
Jane Hammond:
14:42 Absolutely. People have left the film in tears, but I go to most of the screenings and I do Q and A's. I say, "don't get upset, don't get angry, get active". You're feeling this way, because we have to tell the story. But if we do nothing and if we continue to take these animals for granted, they'll be gone. It's again, much before 2050. I believe with our Baudin's, there's only 4,000 of those left on the planet. They're being shot out of the sky illegally by orchardists. So we've got another multiple attacks, on these species of birds.
Sarah Taillier:
15:29 We're just going to pause for a quick break. We'll be back right after this message.
Promo voice: 15:35 Are you interested in a research degree At Curtin University? We'll help you build knowledge in your profession and turn your discoveries into real world outcomes. You'll benefit from resources and support across areas like agriculture and environment, defence and healthy communities. Our commitment to innovative research has seen 95% of our projects rated at or above world standard in the latest euro results, learn how your research could make an impact at curtain.edu/research.
Sarah Taillier: 16:05 And we're back. Bill, I wanted to ask you, what actions are actually happening? Or do you think need to happen to ensure WA's black cockatoos don't become extinct?
Bill Bateman: 16:17 Well, we're not taking a very coherent approach to trying to conserve these birds. As Jane said, the major issue, and this is true for many of our species, not just birds, is land clearance. I know people will talk about, and here at Curtin, we do lots of work on restoration of landscapes. Restoration of landscapes, however, happens at such long-term scales. Often, even if we do successfully restore landscapes, we have issues with keeping the animals there in the time in between. So our Gnangara forest has been heavily logged in the past and has regrown, but we've lost the really, really big trees in there. If we continue to cut down remaining big trees, those big trees are the ones that have hollows in. It takes a long time for hollows to develop in trees. Those hollows are absolutely crucial for the continued breeding success of black cockatoos.
17:19 So there's some very interesting things like white-tailed, black cockatoos breeding on the ECU campus and the Murdoch campus when they've put up cockatubes for them to use. Those are great ideas, really fantastic. Those are the sort of things we do. But those are sticking plasters over the big wound. What we really need is we need to conserve land and we need to stop clearing land.
17:42 So leaping ahead to a point, I know you want to ask me about, which is about the extinction of animals in Australia, unfortunately, we have the world record for wiping out species. We've lost so many species of mammal and we continue. Part of that is because we have things like cats and foxes introduced in the past, but we continue to clear land, and that is the biggest issue. There are some bright spots, which is that animals can adapt to altered landscapes, but not all animals can. Do we really want to live in a degraded landscape anyway? I mean, do we not want to conserve some of these fantastic landscapes? As Jane said, these are umbrella species, if you start saying, "right, we're going to conserve Baudin's cockatoos". Very deliberately looking for what they need, one of those things they need is big old trees, with big old hollows in to breed in. And if we do that, then we can save all the forest around that.
Sarah Taillier: 18:38 This has been touched on throughout our chat together, but how unique and special are these birds?
Bill Bateman: 18:47 Well, the western cockatoos, the red-tailed cockatoos, various subspecies are found all across Australia. We have one specific subspecies down here. Our white-tailed cockatoos are not found anywhere else. They're related to the yellow-tailed cockatoos over east, but they've been separated by the aridification of the continent.
19:08 What's really interesting about the white-tailed cockatoos is they're just beginning to split into two species. So they're genetically very similar, but they're behaviorally different, they feed slightly differently. Someone described the way, for instance, Baudin's eat nuts is much more surgical than the way Carnaby's do, because they have this much longer beak. They also require slightly different nesting habitats and roosting habitats and things. So they're just beginning to split into two species. They're about like a million year separation, which is a really interesting natural experiment to be seeing going on. The fact that we are weighing in and then stamping out those species, adds to the tragedy.
Sarah Taillier:
19:51 Jane, on that, are there any moments for you that really stand out in the filming experience, when you were out with them capturing their story?
Jane Hammond:
20:03 Oh, so many. Yeah, I guess in a really dramatic example of the loss of individual species from the population, I filmed on the south coast, a stretch of highway where I'd got a lot of reports of dead birds. The public were coming to me and saying, "what's going on down there?". So I went down with my camera and I filmed this dramatic and devastating death of a Carnaby, right in front of my Canberra before I'd even focused, just being knocked out by a car. And I didn't know what was going on. I found out later that grain was being spilled. Just tiny bits of grain, little bits of canola spilled in a trickle, like breadcrumbs along the highway by trucks that are unsealed, they're covered. They're not pulling out like when you order compost from Bunnings or something, you get a great big pulse. Not like that. It's almost impossible to see.
21:17 Here's something that we could do for these hungry cockatoos immediately and simply, is make sure that every grain truck that left a farm or collection point was clean, was sealed. You know, get around with your little brush pan and you get all the bits over the edge because it's those tiny, tiny specs, that's just legislation. Not only would we be saving our black cockatoos, also our malleefowl, also falling fowl, as our galahs and our many birds that we are losing this way. So this is the low hanging fruit. That struck me as there is an answer, just the same with the Baudin's. They're being shot out of the sky by orchardists. Now if we made all orchards netted, we would immediately solve that problem because the birds can't get under the nets and the fruit is preserved from other things as well, like frost. But we are not subsidising the netting as much as we should be. In Queensland, there's far more netting of orchards, than in Western Australia.
22:32 So there's two simple things that legislation and government action tomorrow could change. And we could say, "put an immediate moratorium on Gnangara pines. So I guess, whilst I loved these birds and I had great experiences, what struck me, getting back to your question, segueing back, is really that there is an answer to all of this. I grew up with seeing Bob Geldof, go around the world and tell everybody, tell the world leaders, "don't give me any more excuses". Just like we're seeing with Greta Thunberg now. The abilities of certain people to cut through and get action. That's what we need to do here. We need to stop listening to the excuses, at why we can't do things and just get out there and do these simple things, that are going to ensure the... well give the birds a chance. With climate change, they might be doomed anyway. We can do things, I believe in time to make the population more resilient, to preserve the numbers, to protect the habitat.
Sarah Taillier:
23:44 A clear message to policy makers. What are some of the in things that we could do as individuals potentially to help black cockatoos? Is there anything that we can do?
Jane Hammond:
23:52 Oh, so much. The thing I tell people at screenings, is go and talk to your MP. This is an upwards, from the bottom up campaign. So that's the first thing that people could do. But they can also plant a tree. Plant anything, will increase biodiversity, even an Nasturtium or some other sort of pretty flower. It doesn't matter its a plant. Of course, natives are better. Basically, we need to increase the insect populations. We need to increase the greenery. All food sources, plant a nut tree for the cockatoos. I'm moving into a development down south in a paddock, it's not been cleared. Right now, the street trees that they're putting in are macadamias. So there are so many small things that we can do as individuals.
24:50 Murdoch University has just screened the film and raised $15,000 so far, but probably even more, for cockatoo watering stations that were designed by Victoria Park Council. These amazing things, these amazing structures, could be popping up all over the place in appropriate positions. That are safe for the birds to supply that constant clean water and reliable clean water are safe from cats and cars.
Sarah Taillier:
25:23 Bill, I could see you nodding along a fair bit to a lot of Jane's points there. What was coming to mind for you?
Bill Bateman:
25:29 I think Jane makes very, very good points that particularly about, ultimately this is going to come down to policy and legislation. All through my life, i heard the constant story, that if you can just make people love this particular species or know about that particular species, then it's going to be safe. That's true to a certain extent, and that's exactly what this film is doing. But ultimately, the decisions are made by people who are in power come, the decisions come from the top down. There has to be pressure put on them. There has to be, well, there's no excuse to say, "well, yes, it's going to cost money to subsidise nets on farms". It has to be done if you want to keep cockatoos. If policymakers are not prepared to do that, that to me suggests that they are not serious about biodiversity conservation.
Sarah Taillier:
26:15 What about the cultural significance of these birds?
Jane Hammond:
26:19 Yeah, in the film we talked to cultural custodians and for 40,000, 60,000 years, these birds have been living harmoniously with First Nations people. They are greatly respected and many people have them as a totem. So yeah, the feathers have great cultural significance, but to each group, so I can't, I'm not First Nations, I can't speak for that. But from what I learned from doing the film and from interviewing First Nations people, these birds are particularly precious.
Sarah Taillier:
27:00 Bill, I'd love to know what actually inspired you to work in environmental conservation.
Bill Bateman:
27:06 I think similar story to many people like that started off being a nerdy child that was always in ponds or in woods or whatever, and catching things and finding things and getting into trouble. Then having done my degree in zoology and done my PhD, it soon became evident that, yeah, it's really interesting to go and see different parts of the world and go and see different organisms. Ultimately, everywhere the recurring theme is a decline in biodiversity. So if we can start to contribute individually in any way towards that, that's what drove me to move more into the questions about conservation. Again, it's just one person and like I said before, ultimately it comes down to policy decisions, but anything we can produce, anything we can do, just as Jane has done, which will affect policy making, that's the important thing to do.
Sarah Taillier:
28:05 And for you, Jane, you also had a very rich career 25 years as a journalist at least. Why this space?
Jane Hammond:
28:14 Oh, look, this space, I've always been there. I was also there running barefoot through the banksias, but the karri forest was for me. I just love the karri forest, absolutely love it. My parents were teachers, so we spent a lot of time down south because we had all those school holidays. I saw on the news one night, when I was about 14 that they were wood chipping the karri forest. That overnight turned me into an environmental activist. I started skipping school to go to protest marches and getting arrested by the time I was 18. So I've come from that. My heart is really, we are part of history and we have to do something. I think once you get that, once that's in your blood, you can't let it go. And you have to, for me, there's actually not a choice but to keep going. Yeah, I'm absolutely driven to give a voice to the creatures and the planet that on which we all survive. I want my children to see a black cockatoo and my grandchildren and everybody's great grandchildren.
Sarah Taillier:
29:27 Thank you, Jane, and to Bill, as well, for coming in today. Sharing your time and expertise and helping to really draw attention to the plight of this beautiful species.
Bill Bateman:
29:39 Thank You.
Jane Hammond:
29:40 Thank you.
Sarah Taillier:
29:42 You've been listening to The Future Of, a podcast powered by Curtin University. As always, if you've enjoyed this episode, please share it. And don't forget to subscribe to The Future Of on your favourite podcast app. Bye for now.