Unfortunately due to land clearing, less natural habitat is available to many species such as black cockatoos. Black cockatoos are very intelligent and found ways to survive by eating orchard crops and other non native food.
There are calls for the state and federal governments to expedite the release of $1.5 million allocated under a federal scheme for netting.
Mr Casotti who operates orchards from Northampton to Donnybrook said the Federal Government had offered grants of up to $300,000 as part of a $1.5 million grant scheme to fund netting projects in WA in late 2019, but growers were yet to see any funding.
$1.5 million dollars was only a fraction of what was needed to help the industry adopt netting systems and called on the State Government to offer additional funding.
“The cost of netting — at around $50,000 per hectare — is also cost prohibitive for most growers in the current market environment, so we’re asking the Government to step in,” Mr Scott, chairman of Pome West, said.
Source ABC News
Cover photo: Birdlife WA
