Above the teeming shopping streets of Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay, a fight to save one of the world’s most endangered species is unfolding high in the branches of a decades-old cotton tree.
Nestled among its sprawling boughs is a nest box designed for the yellow-crested cockatoo, of which only 1,200 to 2,000 remain in the world.
Although the birds are native to East Timor and Indonesia, one-10th of those left are in Hong Kong — the “largest cohesive remaining wild population” globally, according to Astrid Andersson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hong Kong.
Photo: AFP
Their future hangs in the balance due to habitat loss and, some suspect, a black market for the rare birds.
The cockatoos’ numbers have stagnated, with far fewer juveniles than when Andersson began monitoring them almost 10 years ago.
The birds do not make their own nests, but depend on natural cavities in trees — about 80 percent of which have vanished in recent years because of typhoon damage and government pruning.
Photo: AFP
The nest boxes set up by Andersson are an attempt to rectify this, designed to resemble the hollows sought out by the birds.
She plans to place about 50 across the territory.
“Without the nest boxes, I believe that the cockatoos will have fewer and fewer opportunities to increase or replace individuals that die in their population,” she said.
Photo: AFP
The boxes would also allow observation of their reproductive behavior, which has never been comprehensively studied.
The cockatoos’ existence in Hong Kong has been “a very positive story about human-wildlife coexistence,” Andersson said.
The population in Hong Kong is an introduced one, with one urban legend recounting they originated from an aviary set free by the British governor of Hong Kong before surrendering to the Japanese in 1941.
However, there is no evidence to support that story.
The modern flock’s ancestors are believed to be escaped pets.
Hong Kong’s urban parks, full of mature trees bearing fruit, nuts and other food, became a “sanctuary” for them, Andersson said.
The cockatoos are now part of the territory’s fabric, their loud squawks echoing through the sky at nightfall.
Perched on streetlights, they sit calmly observing the humming traffic along flyovers.
Many people do not realize that they are looking at an endangered species in their neighborhood.
“We genuinely thought they were just like an average parakeet,” said resident Erfan, who lives near a flyover.
Yellow-crested cockatoos are often mistaken for sulphur-crested cockatoos, commonly found in Australia rummaging through bins.
The two are genetically distinct, though, and the Australian species is not endangered.
Merchants at Hong Kong’s bird market certainly know the difference.
When reporters visited, sulphur-crested cockatoos were openly displayed, while yellow-crested ones were only shown upon request.
A one-year-old bird was being sold for HK$56,000 (US$7,167), while a two-month-old chick could sell for HK$14,000.
It has been illegal since 2005 to trade wild-caught yellow-crested cockatoos.
Selling ones bred in captivity is allowed, but the breeders must have valid licences under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
There are no such registered breeders in Hong Kong.
Sharon Kwok Pong (龐郭秀雲), founder of Hong Kong Parrot Rescue, believes there might be a “black market.”
“There have been people that find out where these birds are, they raid them,” she told reporters.
Captive-bred cockatoos should have a ring on their leg and documentation proving their origin, but these can be falsified.
“I think we need a crackdown,” Kwok said. “If you want to protect a species, so unique in this environment, I think a lot of things need to fall into place.”
Andersson has developed a forensic test that analyzes a cockatoo’s diet to determine whether it was recently taken from the wild.
She hopes this will help enforce the ban on illegal sales.
In their native habitats, poaching and rapid habitat loss have devastated the cockatoos’ numbers.
The birds in the territory might one day be able to help revive the overall population.
“Hong Kong’s population could have genetic lineages that are now gone,” Andersson said.
It could function “as a backup population for the wild Indonesian counterparts,” she added.
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