Perth Voice Interactive

A GIANT red tailed black cockatoo will appear at the Perth Cultural Centre today (Saturday September 7) to mark Threatened Species Day.  

Hosted by Save the Black Cockatoos, the WA Forest Alliance, the Urban Bushland Council and Conservation Council, the black cockatoo will be made up of red and black umbrellas to represent endangered and threatened species in WA. 

According to Save the Black Cockatoos, there are over 2000 species and ecosystems “threatened with extinction” nationally, with 245 animal and 429 plant species in WA deemed under threat. 

Save the Black Cockatoos representative Paddy Cullen says the umbrella cockatoo is “artistic activism” which “represents all threatened species” in WA. 

“Black cockatoos live in this southwest global biodiversity hotspot, so it’s the area which has the highest number of rare and endangered species in Australia,” Mr Cullen said. 

“It is the most important place we have in Australia, and yet, more than 90 per cent has been cleared or degraded, and it’s still going on.

“[Black cockatoos] are an indicator species too, that when the numbers drop, it’s a reflection of the environment… it means the bigger trees being removed where their hollows are so they can’t breed and that their foraging trees are getting bulldozed.”

Noongar man Daniel Garlett says the black cockatoo, or Ngolyenok, represents not only an ecosystem under threat, but their connection and place in Noongar culture too. 

“If they die, we, part of me dies…  there is no distinction between the two,” Mr Garlett said. 

“People really need to understand and look at it from the perspective that it’s not just the cockatoos, it relates to all of the native species.”

The umbrella protest is at 11am. 

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER