Dr Christina N. Zdenek
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
CBCS’s Dr Christina N. Zdenek speaks to us about her contributions to the recent documentary television series, The Secret Lives of Animals, created by Apple and BBC Studios Natural History Unit. The 10-part series, narrated by notable British actor Hugh Bonneville, features everything from seals and chimps to caterpillars and, of course, the palm cockatoo.
Christina lent her expertise and her camera skills to help bring the palm cockatoo segment to fruition. “I first consulted remotely for 12 months in the long planning phase and then in the field in the remote far north of Queensland for nine full-on weeks across three trips and two years”, she explains. “I was their liaison with the local First Nations mobs, their wildlife consultant and, during one shoot, a camera operator, assisting the BBC to acquire rare footage and make the story. The latter took an abundance of patience, focus and tolerance of mosquitos. Many, many mosquitos.”
Despite the challenging conditions, Christina feels contributing to the documentary was incredibly important to her, as it is “peak science communication”. “I have worked tirelessly for many, many years to raise the public profile and conservation status of palmies (palm cockatoos), yet this documentary overnight probably reached larger, more global audiences than any scientific paper or report of mine ever will. It will undoubtedly leave a strong impression on people: palmies are incredible. It’s undoubtedly worth the investment to save this umbrella species”, she says.
Palm cockatoos are Australia’s largest cockatoo by weight, and are the only non-human species in the world to be documented using tools musically, drumming with a drumstick to defend their hollows and assist pair-bonding. Increasing public awareness of Endangered palm cockatoos is of utmost importance, Christina emphasises.
Image credit: Chris Hay
Christina has been studying palm cockatoos for 17 years across Cape York and, while she hopes this documentary aids overarching conservation efforts to protect the species, she believes that we must employ numerous strategies to better protect their habitat:
- Employ Indigenous fire management: “Governments and philanthropists should support First Nations rangers to employ their traditional burning regimes across Cape York … We need cool burns in mosaic patterns early in the dry season (including pyrodiversity (e.g., time since fire)) to prevent out of control, super-hot fires late in the dry season. Doing so takes time, expertise, deep knowledge of the landscape and resources. Fire management is particularly crucial for palmies: in one of my sites, I observed the destruction of 45% (17/38) of palmy nest hollows from fire in just 12 years. If we don’t act soon, they won’t have anywhere to breed and will go locally extinct.”
- A multi-pronged approach: “We are trying to address the issue of old-growth nesting tree loss not only by protecting what we have left (via protective firebreaks around individual old nest trees) but also by trialling ways to supplement what’s been lost. We are installing nest cameras to find out why so many nests fail, as well as developing call recognisers for adult and juvenile calls so that we can more efficiently survey for them and their nests. Our funding to do these things runs out at the end of this year. And what we don’t have any funding for currently but absolutely needs to happen is to track palm cockatoos with radio transmitters. This will tell us how they use the landscape in time and place, which would directly guide mining activities that threaten (and in some cases outright destroy) their habitat.”
To support palm cockatoo conservation, please donate to Christina’s People For Wildlife’s palmy page.
To watch The Secret Lives of Animals - and see palm cockatoos using drumsticks musically! – check out the documentary, hosted on Apple TV.
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