![]() ![]() More common species will have larger numbers of potential breeders, less common species, less potential breeders. They may also have been rarer overall and/or more difficult to capture and/or less able to withstand the brutal importation process, though that doesn’t seem to have curbed other parrot species from other places being captured and distributed worldwide for the pet trade to the brink of extinction Once importation for the pet trade was banned, potential breeding stock for parrots in countries like the US is all down to what parrots were already here since no more can be brought over to breed for pets. Thus, when it still would have been “easy” to legally bring them over from Australia, importers were more interested in bringing over cockatoo species like umbrellas and galahs which had traits people looked for in pets and were willing to buy. To my knowledge, black cockatoos (and major Mitchell’s) simply do not make particularly good pets in most cases. To my understanding (this applies to many of the “rare” species in the pet trade today), during the timeframe when importation of wild caught parrots was still legal, some species were found to be either more popular or make better pets than others and thus more individuals of those species were imported. The thought of one being kept in isolation gives me the cold chills. Palm cockatoos have an *amazing* social structure which depends heavily on its flock mentality. It's too unique to muck around with its safety, y'know? ![]() I'm glad the Oz government finally woke up and protected our wildlife. The thought of a tropical cockatoo or macaw living in the northern hemisphere makes me sad. My inner biologist insists that animals should live where they evolved. Certainly, the plaintive cries of the White-taileds that visit my garden remind me of lost souls. I haven't seen a Red-tailed Black or either of the Western Australian species (Carnaby's and Baudin's), but would love to! There's something about black cockies that pulls on your heart strings. I have seen Gang Gangs, Glossy Blacks and White-tailed blacks in the wild in my extended local area and my husband's uncle kept a beautiful pair in his massive aviary until he died (they were bequeathed to a private collector who had an equally brilliant set-up for them). Thankfully, most of the birds recovered and the crooks got hefty sentences. Just a few years ago, someone was caught with over a hundred and fifty native parrots which had been drugged and forced into cardboard tubes for storage in the hold of an aircraft. Now, the only way to get them out is to smuggle them and that's, thankfully, not an easy thing to do any more. Logging activities are responsible for so bl**dy much of our loss of species diversity! I could write a book about it!!!Īnyway, I'm aware that Palm Cockatoos have always been a great curiosity and were exported to some degree in the early part of Australia's nationhood. They only breed in old-growth eucalypt forest where favourable tree hollows can be found. Like most species, the black cockies' worst enemy is habitat destruction. That incident prompted an instant clamp down on native bird species and the severity of the laws and punishments have only increased over time. When I was a young birdo, there was an enormous scandal when it was discovered that two of our leading ornithologists, while 'studying' the rare cockatoos (and other species, like the Rufous Owl) had actually been robbing nests for years and selling the eggs overseas. the Palm cockatoo in far northern Queensland, the Glossy Black in wet sclerophyll forests, even the Gang Gang tends to live in out-of-the-way bushland areas). Most of the black cockatoos live in remote areas (eg.
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