Long-term passive acoustic monitoring of Western Australian cockatoos

Carnaby’s black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus latirostris) and forest red-tailed black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus banksii naso) are threatened avian fauna endemic to Southwestern Australia. Both species vocalize during various activities including flight, foraging, feeding, and breeding, and their vocalizations are known to differ by age and gender. In this study, passive acoustic monitoring is employed to assist with ongoing monitoring and recovery efforts. Autonomous acoustic recorders are installed at two locations—an urban setting in the Swan coastal plains and a bushland setting in the Perth hills district. The urban setting is a well-known roosting site for Carnaby’s cockatoos. Noise from frequent aircraft activity is a dominant feature at the bushland setting. Call repertoires, established using visual sighting information, are used in developing automatic recognition algorithms for efficient processing of long-term recordings. In addition to providing information on population estimates, distribution...