Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo - Relationship With Humans

Relationship With Humans

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos can cause damage in pine and eucalyptus plantations by weakening stems through gouging out pieces of wood in order to extract moth larvae. In places with these gum plantations, the population of the larva of the cossid moth Xyleutes boisduvali grows, which then leads to increased predation (and hence tree damage) by cockatoos. Furthermore, plantations generally lack undergrowth which might have prevented cockatoos from damaging younger trees. Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos were shot as pests in some districts of New South Wales until the 1940s because of this.

Although it is classified as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and not listed nationally as threatened, the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo is declining in numbers in Victoria and South Australia. This is due to habitat fragmentation and loss of large trees used for breeding hollows, although birds have become more plentiful in the vicinity of pine plantations. It has been listed as vulnerable in South Australia, due to its decline in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges, and particularly the perilous status of the small isolated population on the Eyre Peninsula, which has declined sharply since European settlement, probably from loss of suitable habitat. A recovery program was commenced in 1998. Efforts to increase the population include fencing off remnants of native bushland, planting food plants such as Hakea rugosa, monitoring breeding, and raising chicks in captivity. As a result, the population has increased from a low of 19–21 individuals in 1998.

This species was seldom seen in captivity before the late 1950s, after which time a large number of wild-caught birds entered the Australian market. Since then, it has become more common, but is still rarely seen outside Australia. Captive Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos require a large aviary to avoid apathy and poor health. There is some evidence that protein may be more important to them than to other cockatoos, and low protein has been linked with the production of yolkless eggs in captivity. Females in particular enjoy mealworms. They can be placid and tolerate sharing an enclosure with smaller parrots, but do not handle disturbance while breeding. As with other black cockatoos, Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos are rarely seen in European zoos, since Australia restricted exportation of wildlife in 1959, but birds seized by government agencies in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have been loaned to zoos that are members of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). In 2000, there were pairs of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos in Puerto de la Cruz zoo in Spain and in Rotterdam. Like most species of parrots, the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo is protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) with its placement on the Appendix II list of vulnerable species, which makes the import, export, and trade of listed wild-caught animals illegal.