Restoring habitat for the endangered Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo in WA

We’ve been successfully restoring habitat for Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo in partnership with The Water Corporation, WA. The revegetation of Abercorn Rd, The Lakes, which was previously pastoral land, started in 2010 with the objective of ‘…achieving self-sustaining foraging habitat for the endangered Black Cockatoo species’.

The Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo is endemic to southwest Western Australia and requires a close association between breeding and feeding sites during the breeding season. If these two very different habitats are not within a reasonable distance of each other, breeding attempts fail.

The project saw our staff members make an ongoing commitment to undertake this important revegetation and land management work.

Six years after it began, the project has been deemed an overwhelming success. We’ve established 30 species of endemic understory species, all identified as critical Cockatoo habitat species.

We’ve also been able to reduce threats from invasive weed species and improve vegetation by direct seeding approximately 54 kilograms of seed and planting 119,258 seedlings.

We have captured aerial photographs, multi-spectral imagery and videos using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, drone) technologies to assist in revegetation and weed monitoring activities. We are exploring the utility of such data in guiding future environmental works.

Keep an eye out in future news posts for this aerial footage.