It generally takes 28 to 29 days for the female to incubate the eggs, and the young fledge ten to eleven weeks after hatching.

Carnaby's black cockatoo forms flocks when not breeding, with birds in drier habitats usually being more migratory than those in wetter ones.

Carnaby's black cockatoo nests in hollows situated high in trees with fairly large diameters, generally Eucalyptus.

Like most parrots, it is protected by CITES, an international agreement that makes trade, export, and import of listed wild-caught species illegal.

[2] He classified the large-billed form as a subspecies of the white-tailed black cockatoo in 1948, giving it the name Calyptorhynchus baudinii latirostris.

The three species of Zanda were formerly included in Calyptorhynchus (and still are by some authorities), but are now widely placed in a genus of their own due to a deep genetic divergence between the two groups.

[6] The two genera differ in tail colour, head pattern, juvenile food begging calls and the degree of sexual dimorphism.

[9] An analysis of protein allozymes published in 1984 revealed the two Western Australian forms to be more closely related to each other than to the yellow-tailed,[10] and the consensus since then has been to treat them as three separate species.

Its beak is shorter and broader than that of the closely related and similar Baudin's black cockatoo; the two are often difficult to distinguish in the field.

The feathers of its underparts and underwing coverts have larger white margins than those of the male, leading to a more barred or scalloped pattern to its plumage.

[13] Moulting appears to take place in stages in late summer—some time between January or February and April or May, and is poorly understood.

[15] Carnaby's black cockatoo is found across a broad swathe of southwest Australia—mostly within the Wheatbelt region—in places that receive over 300 mm (12 in) of rainfall yearly.

[13] Breeding takes place in areas receiving 350–700 mm (14–28 in) rainfall a year, from the Stirling Range to Three Springs as well as around Bunbury.

Carnaby's black cockatoo is sedentary in wetter parts of its range, and migratory in drier areas as birds move south and west towards the coast in summer.

It is also found nearby pine plantations and sandplains or kwongan heath with abundant Hakea, Banksia, and Grevillea shrubs.

[18] The voice is generally noisy with several calls; loudest and most frequent is a wailing wy-lah,[1] which is uttered by both sexes and often heard before the birds themselves are seen.

They squawk loudly in disputes with their own kind, when other animals enter breeding territory, or when they are handled by people in captivity.

[18] Mature wandoo and salmon gum woodlands provide important breeding habitat for the cockatoos as they need large hollows in tall trees.

[21] There is competition for nest hollows with western corellas (Cacatua pastinator), galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla), and feral honeybees (Apis mellifera).

By the third week, their eyes begin to open and they have a greyish colour as the black pin feathers start to appear under the down.

[28] Over fifty native plant species are commonly used for food, either as seed or flowers, and this includes western sheoak (Allocasuarina fraseriana), orange wattle (Acacia saligna), and balga (Xanthorrhoea preissii).

[28] Typically, Carnaby's black cockatoos sit in the crowns of trees cracking the seed pods or cones.

[29] This cockatoo acts as an agent in biological control, eating the larvae of invertebrates such as wood-boring insects and moths from rare plants.

[32] Other non-native plants that the birds also consume include Erodium species, doublegee (Emex australis) seeds,[30] the fruit of the umbrella tree (Heptapleurum actinophyllum), seeds of liquidambar (Liquidambar styraciflua), sunflower (Helianthus annuus), jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia), almond (Prunus amygdalus), onion grass (Romulea rosea), white cedar (Melia azedarach), and hibiscus flowers.

The population size of Carnaby's cockatoo fell by over 50% in 45 years, and up to a third of their traditional breeding grounds in the Wheatbelt have been abandoned.

[36] The bird is part of an annual census, the Great Cocky count, that has been held every year since 2009 to track the population change of Carnaby's and other black cockatoos.

The Western Australian State Government has produced a Green Growth Plan to manage this expansion; conservation groups are concerned the cockatoo (along with other species) could suffer further loss of habitat.

[40][41] In February 2017, WWF-Australia and BirdLife Australia appealed to the Federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg to intervene and halt the ongoing removal of pine trees.

[38][a] The species' low rate of reproduction and long period of immaturity render it vulnerable to rapid change in the environment as response and recovery are slow.

A probable outbreak of a disease led to the deaths of up to 23 breeding female cockatoos at Koobabbie in September–October 2009, a hailstorm killed 68 individuals around Perth on 22 March 2010, and 145 perished in a heatwave around Hopetoun when temperatures reached 48 °C (118 °F) on 6 January 2010.