Farmers help with cockatoo conservation

The Wilson Inlet Catchment Committee (WICC) started the three-year program late last year, open to landholders across the 3500 square kilometre area that WICC works in - from Nornalup, north to the Porongorups and east most of the way to Albany.

WICC executive officer Shaun Ossinger said to progress the project, local school children and men's shed members were building about 44 nest boxes, which a local arborist will set up on farms.

WICC has trained Aboriginal ranger groups in seed collection and its members are surveying participating properties and collecting native cockatoo flora seeds.

WA College of Agriculture - Denmark students will then help propagate the seeds and grow seedlings, which will be planted out on participating farms by a group of aboriginal rangers and local community volunteers.

Landholders have requested a total of about 70 hectares of vegetation be replanted.

Under WICC's funding agreement, it is required to plant 20ha and will probably achieve about 40ha this year, Mr Ossinger said.

A team of project officers had already assessed all the nominated farms for their suitability for the project.

The nest boxes need to be placed within two kilometres of a permanent water source.

"We have assessed all of those properties, met with the farmers, mapped them with GPS, taken photos and identified where there is already known nesting happening or possible nesting,'' Mr Ossinger said.

"Instinctively about 75 per cent of cockatoos return to where they were born.

"If we know there is nesting in an area, we build on those clusters.

"We put nest boxes around them and make sure there is good vegetation, then those clusters become hot spots of cockatoo activity."

The not-for-profit WICC has operated since 1995, and focuses on sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, waterways and wetlands, with a project officer in charge of each area.

It works closely with a growing network of farmers in the region and its waterways and wetland management and conservation efforts include feral animal control, revegetation, re-establishing perennial grasses onfarm and soil nutrient mapping.

Mr Ossinger said the cockatoo project was pitched to the State government's Natural Resources Management program last year to help arrest the decline of three threatened species - the red-tailed black, Carnaby's black cockatoo and Boudin's black cockatoo.

WICC has received $304,000 in NRM funding to match an equal amount of in-kind support from farmers.

The Carnaby's black cockatoo and the Baudin's black cockatoo are only found in WA's South West and are listed as endangered and critically endangered respectively.

It's estimated 3500-4000 mature Baudin's cockatoos are left.

Due to the huge amount of local interest in the WICC conservation project, Mr Ossinger has just applied to LotteryWest for a further $150,000 to include even more participants.

"We have had more than twice the amount of requests to participate, than we can fund,'' Mr Ossinger said.

"Everything will be focused on delivering the best benefit for the cockatoos.''

Mr Ossinger said about 50pc of the WICC catchment had been cleared for agriculture over the years.

"Unfortunately, that has taken out a lot of the old trees that cockatoos used to use as hollows to nest in - and has also taken out a lot of the flora they used to feed on,'' he said.

Mr Ossinger said 92 farmers had responded to WICC's invitation for expressions of interest to landholders to participate in the cockatoo conservation effort - though not all will be assessed as appropriate to take part.

"By taking part, it meant the landholders were willing to provide either or all of the following: to fence off their remnant vegetation, infill remnant vegetation where stock had previously had access with cockatoo flora and host a nesting box,'' he said.

Mr Ossinger said author, educator and environmentalist Simon Cherriman had already visited four primary schools in the area, including in Denmark Primary, Mt Barker Community College and Kwoorabup Nature School in Denmark, to work with students and the local men's sheds to teach them the skills necessary to build the nesting boxes from recycled materials.

Mr Cherriman then climbed a tree on each school grounds to install one of the nest boxes.

Later this year, the students will also help pick seeds with WICC members, so they can propagate cockatoo flora to plant out below their nest boxes, so each school has a cockatoo sanctuary.

"Simon worked to get the school kids on board as the next generation of cockatoo custodians,'' Mr Ossinger said.

"The kids will be offered seedlings to plant on their properties as well, so they can carry out their own cockatoo conservation efforts on their farms."

Not-for-profit Birdlife WA will also help WICC to assess nominated properties and will then conduct ongoing annual monitoring of the nest boxes.

As part of its conservation efforts, Birdlife also runs an annual Great Cocky Count, which will this year be held on Sunday, April 14 throughout the South West.

The citizen-science survey is the biggest single survey for black cockatoos in WA.

On the night, registered volunteers monitor known roost sites in their area and count black cockatoos as they arrive in the evening.

Records submitted from across the region provide a snapshot of black cockatoo populations and help to quantify changes in their numbers.

More information: birdlife.org.au/great-cocky-count