The Moluccan is the largest of the white cockatoos, the loudest parrot anybody keeps, and one of the most frequently given up. None of that is a reason nobody should have one. It is a reason to be certain before you do, because a Moluccan that does not work out is very hard to place and the bird pays for the mistake.
The volume is not comparable to anything else
A Moluccan scream has been measured alongside industrial noise and it carries through closed windows and across gardens. This is not a flat bird, not a shared-wall bird, and in many neighbourhoods not a bird you can keep without the people nearby knowing in advance. No training reduces it, because it is not a behaviour - it is how the species communicates.
The attachment
Moluccans are the most physically affectionate parrots there are and they need company in a way that is closer to a dependent animal than a pet bird. A hand-raised Moluccan left alone for a working day will scream, and in time will pluck. Owners who do well with them build independence deliberately from the first weeks and keep building it. Owners who indulge the cuddling because it is lovely - and it is lovely - usually have a problem by year three.
Plucking
Common in this species and usually about loneliness, boredom or hormones once a vet has ruled out disease. Far easier to prevent than to reverse.
Powder down
Heavy, even by cockatoo standards. For anybody in the household with asthma or a dust allergy this is a health question, not a cleaning one, and the answer is a different species.
Fifty to seventy years
A Moluccan bought at forty will outlive its owner. Arrange where the bird goes, in writing, and tell the person. Rescues are full of large cockatoos whose owners assumed something would be worked out.
So who should have one
Somebody at home most of the day, in a detached house, with no dust sensitivity in the family, who has kept a large parrot before, who wants a bird involved in everything rather than admired from a distance, and who will spend the first year teaching it to be alone. That household is real and there are people in it who should absolutely have a Moluccan.
What they are like when it works
Overwhelming, in the good sense. Moluccans are tender, funny, startlingly expressive, and they read people better than any parrot kept. Owners who have got it right do not describe the work. They describe forty years with the most affectionate animal they have ever lived with.
Buying one
Ask the breeder what they do to teach independence, and listen hard to the answer - it is the question that matters most with this species. Be honest about your household, because a good cockatoo breeder would rather not sell than see the bird come back. Ask when it weaned and about disease testing. The breeders listed on this page raise Moluccan Cockatoos and can be contacted directly through the site.