The Sulphur- crested cockatoo is a bird you can find in many places in Sydney, Australia. These noisy but attractive birds are constantly increasing all over the city and have been for the past ten years.

Urban Cockatoos

These birds are originally from the eastern and northern parts of Australia. Until now, no study has been made on the behaviour of these birds in urban areas. The lifestyle of the Cockatoo in an urban area has therefore not been studied.

Protects Their Habits

To protect and to better understand their habits and needs, two scientists are embarking on a project so that humans can adapt their habits and this species can be protected.

John Martin and Adrian Davis have developed a tracking and identification system, which involves the people of Sydney. Over the past two years they have marked hundreds of Cockatoos with a yellow loop which have a visible and distinctive number on them for each bird.

Playful Cockatoos

Cockatoos are very playful and sociable with humans, so locating them was easy. A group of “citizen scientists” was started and they could tag the birds on an app when they saw them, called “Wingtags”. There is a Facebook page where pictures of the already marked Cockatoos can be posted as well.

This experiment was successful and there have been more than 7,000 tags identified since the beginning of the project. Their next step is to set up a GPS receiver, to be able to determine where these birds are with more precision. They would also like to track these birds to see if they travel to rural areas as well.

Source and Photo Credit: Vetcaetera

You need to have a Yummypets account in order to comment on this article.
Create your Yummypets account in less than a minute.