Fred the cockatoo turns 100: Queen sends letter to Hobart wildlife sanctuary

Updated

The Queen has sent her best wishes for a 100th birthday party with a difference in Tasmania.

Like most other centenarians, Fred the sulphur-crested cockatoo had a letter from Buckingham Palace to mark the special occasion.

The bird's home is the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary outside Hobart and today the park is holding a birthday party in his honour.

Most of Fred's kind do not make it to 100.

In the wild, sulphur-crested cockatoos can live to about 40 years old.

In captivity, 70 is considered old.

If estimates are correct, Fred would have been born around the time World War I broke out.

Fred was a family pet for several decades until his owner passed away and left Fred to Bonorong.

The cockatoo has lived at the sanctuary for at least the past 20 years.

Staff at the wildlife sanctuary believe he has always lived in captivity.

At Fred's party today children enjoyed activities including face painting and a sausage sizzle.

His carer Petra Harris said the elderly cockatoo preferred women and did not like coming out of his enclosure.

Ms Harris said he liked to pass sticks to visitors in his beak and had a good vocabulary.

His favourite phrases are "Hello Fred" and "Polly want a cracker".

Greg Irons from Bonorong said Fred's birthday was a good time to remember that getting a pet cockatoo was a life-long responsibility.

Topics: animals, animals-and-nature, hobart-7000, tas

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