Foraging habitat + feed trees | NATIONAL GLOSSY FORUM 2024

This session, recorded as part of the 2024 National Forum on Glossy Black-Cockatoo conservation focuses on feeding habits, adaptations and diets of Glossy Black-Cockatoos including insights into the foraging habitat used by the South Australian sub-species after the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires of 2019-2020 and how soil and underlying rocks influence the profitability of feed trees. 

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Dominique Homberger is a functional and evolutionary morphologist of vertebrates (sharks, reptiles, birds, mammals, humans), with a special interest in the feeding adaptations and ecology of parrots and cockatoos since her doctoral studies and her first sabbatical in Australia in 1987. Since then, she has returned to Australia multiple times and increasingly focused on the bill morphology and feeding ecology of red-tailed Black-Cockatoos, including the Glossy Black-Cockatoo. Her research in Australia was made possible by her many Australian colleagues and friends, as well as numerous citizen scientists who shared their knowledge and supported her work in many and various ways.

Janet Carew has had a multi-faceted career spanning investigative work as a Federal Security Intelligence Officer, and as a Chartered Accountant:-auditor, forensic financial investigator specialising in tax and corporate law; through to IT project management, financial management and development, and business consulting. She is also a patented inventor and artist. However, at heart, Janet is a Conservationist.

Trish Mooney has lived and worked on environmental projects on Kangaroo Island for many years, as well as time working in the arid ranges of northern South Australia. She’s been involved with the Glossy Black-Cockatoo Recovery Program since the mid 1990s, and as well as being chair of the SA Glossy Black-Cockatoo Recovery Team is a PhD student at Charles Darwin University. Trish had the opportunity, through her work with the Kangaroo Island Landscape Board, to manage the GBC Recovery Program for several years after the devastating 2019-20 bushfires, rekindling her long term interest in ‘Glossies’ and leading to her decision to undertake this research. This is the 3rd year of her PhD which she is undertaking part time.

Assoc. Professor Gabriel Crowley is an ecologist with over 30 years’ experience in research and extension aimed at improving environmental management. Her research interests span conservation ecology; biogeography; fire and biodiversity management; and Natural Resource Management planning. She has published extensively on the habitat and food requirements of threatened birds. Her current work involves combining legacy datasets with modern analytical techniques to understand the decline and recovery of the Golden-shouldered Parrot, and the feeding ecology of the Glossy Black-Cockatoo. She is a Vincent Serventy medallist, recognising her services to ornithology.

Facilitated by Associate Professor Guy Castley, Griffith University and the Glossy Black Conservancy.