HK scientist puts hope in nest boxes to save endangered cockatoos

Above the teeming shopping streets of Hong Kong's Causeway Bay district, a fight to save one of the world's most endangered species is unfolding high in the branches of a decades-old cotton tree.

Nestled among its sprawling boughs is a nest box designed for the yellow-crested cockatoo, of which only 1,200 to 2,000 remain in the world.

Although the birds are native to East Timor and Indonesia, one-tenth of those left are found in Hong Kong -- the "largest cohesive remaining wild population" globally, according to Astrid Andersson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hong Kong.

Their future now hangs in the balance, due to habitat loss and, some suspect, a black market for the rare birds.

The cockatoos' numbers have stagnated, with far fewer juveniles than when Andersson began