Barnaby's White-tailed Black Cockatoo
By Lloyd Marshall

A group of 28 Barnaby's white-tailed black cockatoos, which is expected to form part of a group whose offspring will be exported from Australia to Europe and the United States, was sold by tender in 1999 in Western Australia for an average price of $AUS1,560. The lowest bid was $AUS1,300 -- for each of four surplus males -- and the highest was $AUS2,050.

During the past three years 34 eggs and 114 chicks were collected from the wild and placed with five well-qualified Western Australian aviculturists. One hundred and thirty-one birds survived to three months old and 124 remain alive today.

The 28 birds sold by tender, which were microchipped and DNA-sexed, comprise the 20 percent which had to be returned to CALM under conditions laid down for the program. Funds realized from the sale have gone into a trust account that is used for conservation programs. Peter Mawson, Ph.D., senior zoologist with CALM's wildlife branch, said prices realized were in line with those asked by commercial sellers.

"CALM favors legalizing the export of these birds," Mawson said, "and people owning these birds will be in the box seat if export of aviary-bred birds is legalized, because their progeny can be readily identified as coming from legally-obtained birds."
Mawson believes the only way Barnaby's white-tailed black cockatoos would survive in the wild was if the illegal trade was stopped. "Their numbers in the wild have declined between 30 and 50 percent in the past 30 years," he said. "We believe there are now between 10,000 and 20,000 in the wild, probably closer to 10,000." The wild-taken birds held by aviculturists through this program are expected to begin breeding this year the birds breed at four years old in the wild, but as early as two or three years of age in captivity.
Mawson said CALM spent considerable resources monitoring breeding performance and nests from which eggs and chicks were taken. "This monitoring showed that a small level of controlled, selective harvesting had little or no impact on the number of birds that fledged to the wild or were available for recruitment into the adult population," Mawson said.

CALM previously ran a similar program with naretha bluebonnets, where 40 were captured from their range on the Nullarbor Plain, held in six private aviaries and successfully bred. When they were taken from the wild it was thought that they were threatened, with one bird held by a Western Australian breeder and a colony of six inbred birds held at Perth Zoo in Western Australia. DNA testing of the caught birds indicated that their gene pool was diverse and they were not under threat.

In March 1999, Western Australian aviculturists held 81 birds, 102 were in the hands of private collectors in other parts of Australia and 16 were in zoo collections around Australia. Mawson said the market price for these birds had fallen from around $AUS2,000 per bird in 1991 to the current asking price of around $AUS600-$700 per pair. "This has significantly reduced the financial incentive for poaching from the wild," Mawson said. Under the conditions of the program, CALM retained ownership of the original 40 birds collected from the wild as well as half of the offspring.
 
Aviculturists paid all capture and maintenance costs and at the conclusion of the program all birds owned by CALM were sold by public tender, raising $AUS24,000, which was placed in a trust account for conservation programs.
         
All birds now held are established in pairs, courtship behavior has been observed, but no breeding has been recorded.

 LLOYD MARSHALL is an aviculturist in Western Australia.