A Perth university's program to encourage the threatened Carnaby's cockatoo to breed in urban areas by installing custom-built nesting hollows has been hailed a success, after five chicks hatched this year.

Wildlife authorities did not believe the critically endangered Carnaby's black cockatoo bred in Perth.

However a chance discovery by a student of a suspected nesting hollow in a car park at a university in the city's northern suburbs a year ago prompted Edith Cowan University (ECU) to install nine artificial hollows in trees around its Joondalup campus.

"Carnaby's haven't been recorded breeding in the urban area before, they tend to breed on the outskirts of Perth and up north and out in the Wheatbelt, so this is quite an unusual occurrence," Professor Will Stock said.

The university decided to install the man-made nesting boxes because it is not always easy for the Carnaby's cockatoo to find a suitable tree for breeding.

"What you really need is what we call a habitat tree and that's a tree that's beginning to decompose and form a hollow," Professor Stock said.

"And what Carnaby's tend to like is a hollow that goes straight [up], and so you need a tree that's basically rotting from the top down not from the bottom up."

Trees can take well over 100 years to form suitable hollows for the cockatoos.

Urban environment poses risks

The university is working with the Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPAW), with officers examining the nestlings to make sure they are healthy.

They also put an identifying band on their right led to help monitor them, and take a DNA sample, by collecting feathers.

DPAW senior wildlife officer Rick Dawson holds a Carnaby's cockatoo chick at Joondalup. ( ABC News: Nikki Roberts )

DPAW has been working with artificial hollows for Carnaby's cockatoos for about 10 years, achieving significant success over the past six years after perfecting the design.

"Every opportunity we've got to have another nestling fledge is another opportunity these birds … for the numbers to increase," senior DPAW officer Rick Dawson said.

But while Mr Dawson supports the ECU project, he was quick to point out that artificial hollows would not be suitable for most parts of Perth, with cars and the like responsible for the deaths of up to 150 of the birds each year.

Professor Stock agreed, saying one of the two nestlings that hatched on the campus last year had since died.

"Last year the two that were banded, we called them Ronny and Chappy, one of them was actually killed on Wanneroo Road, it looked like a car strike," he said.

"And that seems to be one of the big issues, particularly for urban cockatoos is the way they fly, they don't get up quickly and so traffic is actually a big problem."

Environmental biologist Simon Cherriman has been scaling the trees at ECU to retrieve the chicks from their nests so they can be checked, before returning them to their hollows.

He also built five of ECU's nesting boxes, using only recycled material.

"When the guys [who] had been monitoring rang me up and said that all five of the wooden boxes that I had supplied had been occupied by cockatoos, it was absolutely thrilling … it's amazing to see they've been so successful," he said.

"To see that you've salvaged this stuff and it's not going in the tip, and when it gets turned into a nest box it's wonderful, but when the actual birds you are targeting move in and hatch chicks in there it's absolutely indescribable, it's an amazing feeling."