‘Flamin’ cockatoos’ have lost much of their habitat to bushfires. Can the species survive?

Two fires in 12 years wiped out all but a handful of the mature native pines in Victoria’s Wyperfeld national park, a key breeding ground for endangered pink cockatoos Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast At the entrance to Wyperfeld national park, in north-west Victoria, more than a dozen pink cockatoos are sprinkled across a hedge row of pine trees like Christmas decorations. These are Aleppo pines, not the native conifers that the birds rely on for nesting habitat and as a primary source of food. Still, the feathered ornaments appear quite content, nestled in among the spruce and ripping into pine cones with their dexterous claws and beaks, making gentle cracking sounds that punctuate the soft roar of Mallee winds. It’s a blissful scene that belies the devastation ahead. Inside the park, 70% of the cockatoo’s core habitat, an area known as “pine plains”, was scorched in January’s devastating bushfires, leaving charcoal shadows and empty space. That’s bad news for Lophochroa leadbeateri, an endangered bird previously known as the Major Mitchell’s cockatoo. The ecologist Dr Victor Hurley