Glossy black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus lathami) are the smallest of Australia’s black cockatoo species. They only raise one chick per year and mate for life. They are found across eastern Australia, but the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires wiped out more than 45 per cent of glossy black cockatoo habitat in the New South Wales’ Mid North Coast region.
In response to this, a team of experts, scientists and citizen scientists set up the Glossy Squad. With the support of WWF-Australia and Saving our Species, the project is a collaborative conservation project to locate the glossies, their feed trees and nesting habitat while gaining a better understanding of the challenges impacting their survival.
Brian Hawkins, the senior threatened species officer at the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, stated that the discovery resulted from over 1,000 hours of volunteer work by more than 60 citizen scientists.
"It's really hard to find them and the only way to do it is to have ears and eyes on the ground, a network of community members and citizen scientists who love the birds and pay attention to what the birds are doing on the ground," he told ABC News.
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