If there has been a cockatoo explosion over recent decades it is man made, we are planting more crops to sustain the human population on what used to be scrubland or rainforest, the natural homes of these cockatoos. Cockatoos eat grain, corn, cereals, fruit; planting these crops and destroying their natural environment, you could almost say we have invited them to evolve 'en masse'. Then when these crops get destroyed, what do we do? Destroy the cockatoos (and other native birds) who would not be there in the first instance had we not destroyed their natural habitat.  

At the end of it all who are the real fools? Man has a strange desire to eliminate everything that gets in his way, at what cost?

'You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.' zen buddhist text

Very commonly in Australian English the word galah is used to refer to a fool or idiot. Marshall and Drysdale in Journey among Men (1962), suggest that this sense of galah may have a non-Australian origin: 'A clue to the possible origin of the slang usage of `galah'. - In Malaya gila (pronounced gee-lah) means mad; hence orang gila, a madman'. But this explanation has not been accepted, and the Australian meaning must be a transfer from the bird, no doubt incorporating a judgment about the relative intelligence of the bird. 

This is why some (but not all) Australians call the Roseate cockatoo the 'Galah' meaning fool or idiot.

From the Oxford Talking Dictionary:

1. A very common Australian cockatoo, Eolophus roseicapillus with a pink breast and grey back. Also called rose-breasted cockatoo.

2. A fool, a simpleton. (Austral. slang)

Not a complimentary term of endearment. This is actually what some Australians think of their native Roseate cockatoo. It is classed as a 'pest' in many areas and this is why they kill this cockatoo (and many other cockatoos, lories etc) - supposedly under licence only.

The following are FACTUAL extracts from various sources detailing (some) of what is done to Australian cockatoos by (some) Australians.

The following extract by Ray Ackroyd, Licensed Trapper in Australia:

'Another example is South-west Western Australia where White-Tailed Black Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus Baudinii) are destroyed. Damage licenses are issued to primary producers if it can be demonstrated that these Cockatoos are causing damage. Over the past forty years and right up until the present time, growers protecting cropping have slaughtered thousands of Western Australia's White-Tailed Cockatoos. At the same time I would be quick to point out that it is a serious offence to take one of these birds from the wild for captive breeding purposes. The penalty for such an offence is $4000.'

Ray Ackroyd has a business 'Ackroyd's Bird Watching Tours'

He advertises in the bird press to take tourists into the outback to show them the birds. These very same birds that he, at certain times of the year CULLS. 

Does the word hypocrite spring to mind?
No bird lover in our opinion, could for any reason - trap and kill what they claim to love.

For the past 30 years farmers in South Western Victoria have been plagued by very large numbers of Long-Billed Corellas. (Cacatua Tenuirostris). Last year the Victorian state Wildlife Authorities had four teams trapping and gassing to death 17,000 of these troublesome birds. 

The Musk Lorikeet (Glossopsitta Concinna) and the Red-Capped Parrot (Purpureicephalus Spurius) are shot under State Wildlife Licenses.

The number of birds killed each year varies to the severity of the damage to fruit, but in some years over 10,000 Parrots and Lorikeets are shot in various fruit growing districts.

Shooting cockatoos is NOT a recent phenomenon - click below to read the cynically true poem, circa 1933:

White Cockatoos

11 April 2001

Cockatoo control begins

With more farmers turning to cropping for an income this season, there's more food around for cockatoos. Annecdotal evidence suggests numbers are on the increase across Victoria, causing extensive damage in both rural and urban areas. But help is on the way, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment has just started this year's culling campaign and farmers are hoping for a big kill. Ken McPhee from Mt Dryden, near Stawell, says its vital to control the cockies or else he'll lose much of his crop. David Brennan, cockatoo co-ordinator, and Andrew Christian, a trapper, say the whole process has an added benefit, scaring off the cockies after the trapping has taken place.
David Brennan: Cockatoo co-ordinator, Department of Natural Resources and Environment
Ken McPhee: Mt Dryden property owner
Andrew Christian: Cockatoo trapperinfo@criaderodeavesexoticas.com
courtesy abcnews Lyndal Reading

22 March 2000 Australia: Fed - Govt accuses Victoria of killing endangered birds.

CANBERRA, March 22, AAP - The Victorian government had allowed trees housing endangered red-tailed black cockatoos to be felled, the federal government said today.
The site on private land near Horsham in western Victoria was important for nesting, Environment Minister Robert Hill said.
"Over the past few years, the federal government has contributed significant amounts of money through the Natural Heritage Trust in the recovery project for the south-east red-tailed black cockatoo," Senator Hill said in a statement.
"This includes protection of existing nesting sites, which is vital to the success of the project.
"An important component of this project has been the dedicated involvement of many volunteers and landholders.
"It is simply not good enough that the trees specifically identified for protection under the conditions of the clearing permit have been destroyed."
The Victorian government must explain the felling of the 80 trees and take action against those people responsible for destruction of the nesting site, he said.
The federal government understood Victorian laws allowed a planning permit to be issued to remove trees on the site in January.
"A condition of the permit was to protect the identified nest trees," Senator Hill said.
"An inspection of the site two weeks ago by a specialist biologist revealed that all the important nest trees had been cleared."
(c) 2000 AAP Information Services Pty Ltd

March 25, 1999

Bulletin Australia

In response to lobbying from grain growers the minister of the Dept of Natural Resources & Environment in the Australian State of Victoria has announced changes in wildlife regulations to allow the use of restricted agricultural chemicals, including organophosphates, for culling cockatoos, corellas and galahs. Chemicals that are not registered (e.g. lucijet) or prohibited for use beyond a registered use (e.g. phosdrin) will not be allowed to be used in this program.
courtesy cpc news

The following text is from the newspaper The Herald Sun on 25/3/99

Farmers Plan to Poison Birds in Australia"POISON PLAN FOR FLOCKS"

Herald Sun, Thursday March 25, 1999
Thousands of wild galahs, cockatoos and corellas will be poisoned in a chemical cull. Victorian farmers yesterday won new powers to use lethal chemicals to stop birds so often blamed for ravaging their crops and sending them broke. But opponents last night said the Australian wildlife faced agonizing deaths under the plan. They warned that other bird life, including eagles and hawks could be poisoned. It is understood the poison attacks the central nervous systems. Vets said the poison would not be quick and birds would suffer long and painful deaths.
Conservation and Land Management Minister Marie Tehan admitted the decision to approve mass poisoning was difficult, but the government had to respond to the plight of Victoria's farmers.
"We've had stories of total wipe-out of crops, from 25 to 100 per cent of crop," she said. Mrs. Tehan could not say how many thousands of birds would be killed, but she described the situation as desperate. Farmers will be issued with 60 day poisoning permits if they can prove crop loss or financial hardship.
They will be restricted to chemicals allowed under the Agriculture and Vet Chemicals Act, which Mrs. Tehan said were commonly used in farming and horticulture. She said the bird population was booming despite limited shooting, trapping and gassing. But animal rights activists and vets said birds could endure painful deaths from the poison. "They fly off before the poison kills them and they'll either spend a long time in agony before they die, or they'll be very sick and maybe recover, "said RSPCA president Dr Hugh Wirth."
Sixty-day permits will be issued once inspecting wildlife officers confirm significant damage to crops. However, wildlife authorities cannot give advice on baits or poisons to be used because there is no information, the poisons previously being banned from such use and no research has been carried out. Accidental kills of non-target species will be excused.
Beyond human safety we are particularly concerned about The need; extensive studies by the department itself have strongly recommended against poisoning to control pssiterines.
* Non target kills; there will be numerous as primary kills of many species of pssiterines (possibly including threatened species), other grainivorous birds and mammals. As you know many species that do not usually eat grain will do so during winter - when the poisoning is planned. There will also be numerous secondary kills of raptors, corvids and mammals.
* To precade the effects on the target species from a conservation and ecological sense the humane aspects; organophosphates are a violent poison. Minimal monitoring of the program is planned; permitees are being asked to record and report all kills to the department, i.e. it might be largely self-policed. The normal process of ethics approval has apparently been bypassed at a political level.
Please write to the minister about this alarming issue as a matter of urgency.

The Honorable Marie Tehan
Minister for Natural Resources and Environment
PO Box 500
East Melbourne
Victoria 3002
Australia
Fax international +61 3 96378999

Hi to all the Aussie Birdnetters

Our TV station has a very popular nature programme called 50/50. Some time ago it had an insert on Australians Parrots. On the programme they had what appeared to be fairly old footage of people throwing nets over Cockatoos and then killing them by stamping them with heavy poles.

Last night's programme once again showed something similar. I unfortunately missed the first part but I imagine the person objecting to the situation was someone named John. HE also had large numbers of the dead birds that he had displayed outside some Government building to show
his objection to what was happening.

If anyone knows of this I would like to know the following:

Is the killing still an on-going thing? And if so are the birds such anenormous problem that they have to be killed this way?

Does anyone have the name of the name of the person who was mentioned as leader of this objection?

We also have problems birds in South Africa - noticeably the Redbilled Quelea - which are killed by exploding petrol in the reedbeds they roost in or by poison which of course kills indiscriminately. But there are literally millions of them which look like a moving cloud when the flocks take to the air. They have to be controlled as they consume large quantities of grain. But I would like to know if the birds in Australia really occur in such large numbers. Could they not in time become threatened?

Dear Tony
It sounds as though the footage you saw may relate to a campaign orchestrated by a licensed bird trapper called Ray Ackroyd, who trapped Long-billed Corellas, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and Galahs for the domestic market, during the early 1980s. He used nets to trap the birds, and lobbied vigorously to enable their export, arguing that exporting pest birds would resolve the problems they cause to farmers (and line his pockets). In one of his more extreme acts, he is alleged to have clubbed Galahs (and other species?) to death on the steps of Parliament House in Sydney, to draw attention to his claim that export was the humane way to deal with such pests! It is also alleged that he released Long-billed Corellas captured in western Victoria, in Sydney, thus initiating a population of this species outside its normal range.

Several species of cockatoos do cause some damage to a variety of crops, but destruction of the birds is seldom the best or most cost effective way of controlling the problem. It does provide psychological 'relief' and is widely practised. In Victoria, trapping with nets and then gassing of Long-billed Corellas, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and Galahs is permitted as a way of mitigating crop damage, although it has not been demonstrated that removal of birds by this means has any impact on damage levels.

Destruction of trapped birds by 'stamping them with heavy poles' has never been a legal method in Victoria, or, to my knowledge, anywhere in Australia. Similarly, poisoning of cockatoos is not legal in Victoria, but it still continues.

In spite of destruction of Long-billed Corellas, they remain abundant within their restricted distribution, and their range is expanding. I suspect that the destruction of these birds is too sporadic and on too small a scale to have an impact on their populations in the long term. The Galah and the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo are much more widespread and are common through much of their ranges. Of greater concern than destruction of these birds by farmers is the continuing loss of large old hollow-bearing trees used for nesting.

Hope this helps. Cheers Ian
=======================================
Ian Temby
Wildlife Damage Control Officer
Secretary, BIRDS Australia Parrot Association
Flora and Fauna Branch
Department of Natural Resources and Environment
4/250 Victoria Parade
EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002
AUSTRALIA
Phone 613 9412 4429
Fax 613 9412 4586
E-mail i.temby@dce.vic.gov.au

Ray (Ackroyd licensed bird trapper) will be pleased to help you:
Ray Ackroyd
P.O. Box 44
Bringelly
NSW, 2171 AUSTRALIA

With thanks to Warwick Remington, Ballarat, Australia

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