11/03/2026
GRAPHIC WARNING: Have you mob ever seen an elderly looking cockatoo, behaving strange with a frail body and lack of feathers? Chances are they are probably suffering from the final stages of PBFD (Psittacine beak and feather disease). It's an extremely contagious illness amongst at least 38 out of 50 native bird species in Australia, with symptoms of feather loss and beak deformation. As the disease takes effect, the flock will desert the carrier. Overtime the carrier loses the ability to fly, eat, and walk, before dying a painful, lonely death.
Whilst I was out filming the floodwaters I saw a cockatoo fall down from the sky. He looked to be in a bad way, he walked around for a couple minutes before I perched him up on a branch; hoping he'd get it together and fly away. After a few minutes it became painfully obvious that he could no longer fly. Upon closer inspection I discovered he was gravely infected with beak and feather disease. This cockatoo had entered the final stage of the disease, his mussel tissue was rotting to the point where he could no longer fly.
I placed the cockatoo on the ground, laying him down on his side with the weight of a branch resting under his wing to comfortably hold him down. I then put him out of his misery. May the next life treat him better than this one.
