City Parrots

ABC South West WA

The Western Australian Government has released a plan to prevent the illegal shooting of the threatened white-tailed black cockatoo.

The cockatoos are a pest for fruit growers and can cause major damage to apple and pear orchards.

But there are only about 12,000 of the birds left in the wild and the Government says they must be protected.

It has introduced new guidelines for cockatoo control in orchards this summer and is looking into long-term solutions such as new bird scaring technologies.

The Department of Conservation and Land Managements’ Rick Dawson says other efforts to protect the species are gaining momentum, with 15 rehabilitated cockatoos released into the wild near Nannup yesterday.

“There’s no doubt that white-tailed black cockatoos do damage fruit,” he said.

“There are a number of measures which the department has put forward and we’ll provide these measures and provide as much assistance as we can to try and reduce the damage to their crop so that hopefully the white tails and the fruit growers can live together in harmony.”