A new study released in March 2026 used sound-recording devices and artificial intelligence to track pink cockatoos — a rare Australian parrot — across their natural habitat. The research was published in the Australian Journal of Zoology. The work comes as these birds face serious threats to their survival.

Pink cockatoos are now critically endangered in the Australian state of Victoria. The biggest problem is that trees are being cleared for farming and development. Pink cockatoos are picky about where they live: they return to the same tree hollows — the natural holes in old trees where they raise their young — year after year. It takes decades for these hollows to form. BirdLife Australia shows that cutting down forests has destroyed the nesting spots the birds need. The cockatoos also stay near water, so they get trapped in smaller and smaller patches of protected land.

Wyperfeld National Park in Victoria is one of the last places where pink cockatoos live. Parks Victoria says Discovery Walk within the park is one of the few spots where you can actually find them. The park has the old eucalyptus trees with hollows and water sources the birds need. But the park catches fire almost every year.

Fire: Harmful and Helpful

Satellite photos from USGS show fire damage across the park year after year. For birds that need tree hollows to survive, fire is a mixed problem. Hot fires can kill old trees with hollows, removing homes. But new plants grow back after fires, giving the birds food. A landscape with different ages of burned areas gives them the variety they need.

Park managers understand this tricky balance. Wyperfeld's conservation plan focuses on helping the cockatoos breed in specific areas. Simply leaving nature alone is not enough for birds with such particular needs.

The new sound-recording technology could help managers understand which areas the birds actually use at different times of year — information that traditional methods of watching birds cannot provide.

How Sound Recording Works

Automatic sound recorders left in the field for weeks pick up bird calls. Computer software can recognize each species' specific sounds. For pink cockatoos, which Bush Heritage Australia notes come back to the same hollows all their lives, knowing when and where they call could tell managers the best times and places to act — whether that means controlling predators, building artificial nest boxes, or fixing water sources.

Sound recorders solve a practical problem: Wyperfeld is huge and remote, and burns so often that human observers cannot cover the whole park. But machines can record continuously, building up knowledge with each year.

The endangered status, the park's breeding support plan, and this new sound-recording method all show that saving pink cockatoos requires active work by managers. But real success depends on whether the birds can find nesting trees not just inside the park, but in the wider countryside — and that means stopping tree clearing outside park boundaries.