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HONG KONG: Above the teeming shopping streets of Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district, a fight to save one of the world’s most endangered species is unfolding high in the branches of a decades-old cotton tree.
Nestled among its sprawling boughs is a nest box designed for the yellow-crested cockatoo, of which only 1,200 to 2,000 remain in the world.
Although the birds are native to East Timor and Indonesia, one-tenth of those left are found in Hong Kong — one of the “largest cohesive remaining wild populations” globally, according to Astrid Andersson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hong Kong.
Their future now hangs in the balance, due to habitat loss and, some suspect, a black market for the rare birds.
The cockatoos’ numbers have stagnated, with far fewer juveniles than when Andersson began monitoring almost 10 years ago.
The birds don’t make their own nests but depend on natural cavities in trees — about 80 percent of which have vanished in recent years, because of typhoon damage and government pruning.
The nest boxes set up by Andersson are an attempt to rectify this, designed to resemble the hollows sought out by the birds.
She plans to place about 50 around the city.
“Without the nest boxes, I believe that the cockatoos will have fewer and fewer opportunities to increase or replace individuals that die in their population,” she said.
The boxes will also allow observation of their reproductive behavior, which has never been comprehensively studied.


The cockatoos’ existence in Hong Kong has been “a very positive story about human-wildlife coexistence,” said Andersson.
The population in Hong Kong is an introduced one, with one urban legend recounting they originated from an aviary set free by the British governor of Hong Kong before surrendering to the Japanese in 1941.
There is no evidence to support that story, however — the modern flock’s ancestors are in fact believed to be escaped pets.
Hong Kong’s urban parks, full of mature trees bearing fruit, nuts and other food, became a “sanctuary” for them, Andersson said.
The cockatoos are now part of the city’s fabric, their loud squawks echoing through the sky at nightfall.
Perched on streetlights, they sit calmly observing the humming traffic along city flyovers.
Many people don’t realize they are looking at an endangered species in their neighborhood.
“We genuinely thought they were just like an average parakeet,” resident Erfan, who lives near a flyover, told AFP.
Yellow-crested cockatoos are often mistaken for sulfur-crested cockatoos, commonly found in Australia rummaging through bins.
The two are genetically distinct though, and the Australian species is not endangered.


Merchants at Hong Kong’s bird market certainly know the difference.
When AFP visited, sulfur-crested cockatoos were openly displayed, while yellow-crested ones were only shown upon request.
A one-year-old bird was being sold for a whopping HK$56,000 ($7,000), while a two-month-old chick could sell for HK$14,000.
It has been illegal since 2005 to trade wild-caught yellow-crested cockatoos.
Selling ones bred in captivity is allowed, but the breeders must have valid licenses under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
There are no such registered breeders in Hong Kong.
Sharon Kwok Pong, founder of Hong Kong Parrot Rescue, believes there may be a “black market.”
“There have been people that find out where these birds are, they raid them,” she told AFP.
Captive-bred cockatoos should have a ring on their leg and documentation proving their origin, but these can be falsified.
“I think we need a crackdown,” Kwok said.
“If you want to protect a species, so unique in this environment, I think a lot of things need to fall into place.”


Andersson has developed a forensic test that analyzes a cockatoo’s diet to determine whether it was recently taken from the wild.
She hopes this will help enforce the ban on illegal sales.
In their native habitats, poaching, rapid habitat loss and climate change have devastated the cockatoos’ numbers.
The financial hub’s birds may one day be able to help revive them.
“Hong Kong’s population could have genetic lineages that are now gone,” she said.
It could function “as a backup population for the wild Indonesian counterparts.”

ST. JOHNSBURY: Anne Pace has been hearing about Dog Mountain for years, but until earlier this month, had never made a trip to the park.
“I really wanted to see this place,” she said, during a visit to the grounds with her one-year-old border collie, Tam. “I put a note up for my previous border collie. He was my best buddy.”
Set on 150 acres tucked away on a hillside in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, Dog Mountain has become a destination for dog lovers looking to explore nature, take in art, or pay tribute to a pet.
The park was created 25 years ago by Vermont folk artist Stephen Huneck and his wife, Gwen, and features hiking trails, swimming ponds, an art gallery and a Dog Chapel where visitors can add to the thousands of photos and notes to pets that cover the chapel walls.
“It is absolutely breathtaking. That’s a lot of love when you think about each picture that’s here,” said Vanessa Hurley, who was visiting with her husband and two dogs from Ohio. “Dogs and cats both, they just bring so much enjoyment to our lives,” she said.
Inspired by the bond he shared with his dogs, Huneck wanted to create a space where other animal lovers could celebrate their beloved pets, gallery manager Pam McCann said.
“Dog Mountain is really a pilgrimage place and a sanctuary,” she said.
Huneck’s sculpture, prints and furniture are featured in the gallery and scattered throughout the park, including inside the chapel he built himself. With black labs and golden retrievers carved into the ends of each pew and images of his own dog, Sally, in the stained-glass windows, his love of dogs is evident in every detail.
Scott Ritchie and his wife, Julie, have been traveling the country in an RV with their three large dogs and thought Dog Mountain would be the perfect place for them to stretch their legs. They enjoyed it so much on their first visit, they decided to come back the next day.
“It’s very rare you see something like this anywhere. We’ve been traveling all over the US for five and a half months. Just a beautiful area,” he said.
McCann says the park was made for visitors like Ritchie.
“That’s what it’s for, people who really care and people who are very connected to everything around them,” she said. “Including the animals that they are the guardians of.”