Critically Endangered
Red-vented Cockatoo
Cacatua haematuropygia
Red-vented Cockatoo is a parrot in the family Psittacidae (order Psittaciformes) — Cacatua haematuropygia, recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to Philippines.
Appearance
Their plumage is all white with red undertail coverts tipped white, yellowish undertail, and pale-yellow underwings. It is quieter than most cockatoos, and much quieter than the white cockatoo or salmon-crested cockatoo. It is roughly the size and shape of the Tanimbar corella, but is easily distinguished by the red feathers around the vent.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to the Philippines, formerly found throughout the entire country, but due to the illegal wildlife trade, it is now locally extinct in most of its range with the only sizeable population remaining in Palawan and Sulu Archipelago. Remnant populations occur in the Polillo Islands, Bohol, and Samar. It is threatened by habitat loss and the cage-bird trade.
Red-vented cockatoos were formerly widely distributed on all larger and many smaller islands of the Philippines, excluding northern and central Luzon. Remnant populations exist on the islands of Palawan, Tawitawi, Bohol, and Samar.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The diet of red-vented cockatoos is mostly seeds, but they also eat fruit, flowers, and nectar. Based on captive breeding, their clutch size is two or three white eggs.
Incubation takes 28 days, and hatchlings remain in the nest for 9 to 10 weeks.
In crisis
The IUCN Red List has assessed this bird as critically endangered with an estimate of 430 - 750 mature individuals. In the early 1990s, the total wild population was estimated at 1000–4000, but by 2008, this was reduced to probably less than 1000. Thanks to the efforts of the Katala Foundation, the population has increased in key sites from 23 in 1998 to 260-340 individuals by end of 2015.
Individuals have reportedly self-introduced from Rasa Island to the mainland, indicating that Rasa may be reaching carrying capacity. With the implementation of a nest-protection scheme on Pandanan in 2008, the cockatoo population increased from 40 birds to at least 230 by the end of 2015.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Red-vented Cockatoo is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Red-vented Cockatoo, Wikidata item Q757360. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
