Jew World Order

Cassowary – World’s Most Dangerous Bird

 The magnificent Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius johnsonii) is a large, flightless bird that lives in the Australian rainforest. As the Bruce Lee of birds, it can kick with deadly force and possesses incredible speed and power. If you can see them that means you are too close and should take immediate protection. If you turn your back and run the bird will take that as a sign of weakness and will come after you at 50km ph (30 mph), which is faster than any human can run.

The Guinness Book Of Records lists the Cassowary as the most dangerous bird in the world. Seriously threatened with extinction in the wild, there were reportedly less than 1,500 of them left in 2011.

Cassowary kicking a shield.

Cassowaries are territorial and each one will guard about a 7km2 patch of rainforest. They will fight each other to protect their ground. With 5-inch-talon middle claws, they can split you open in seconds. Females are much bigger than males, standing 2 metres (6 feet) tall. Its protruding head-horn is made of keratin (same as rhino horn), which they use to slash through heavy rainforest scrub.

Evidently a family was picnicking on the beach when some Cassowaries came to investigate their food. The people jumped straight into their car and the Cassowary attacked it, ripping a six-inch gash through the door of the four-wheel drive vehicle with its centre claw, which the bird uses for slashing and disemboweling.

Cassowaries Have A Soft Side, Too

Cassowary father and his chic.

As tough as Cassowaries are, they also have a gentler side. Notoriously shy, they are herbivores that eat mainly berries and fruit.

Every day is Father’s Day for male Cassowaries. After courting the female with a very impressive visual display and sound show, she accepts his advances and then lays a clutch of large green eggs in a scrape in the ground that is lined with plant material. She then packs up and leaves while the male takes sole responsibility for the eggs, incubating them for approximately 50 days, during which time he hardly eats.

Every day is Father’s Day for male Cassowaries. After courting the female with a very impressive visual display and sound show, she accepts his advances and then lays a clutch of large green eggs in a scrape in the ground that is lined with plant material. She then packs up and leaves while the male takes sole responsibility for the eggs, incubating them for approximately 50 days, during which time he hardly eats

Cassowary father and eggs.

After hatching, he rears the chicks, taking care of them for nine months and often up to 18 months if he doesn’t mate in the following season. They are the perfect stay-at-home dad, protective of their eggs and chicks and capable of becoming very aggressive in their defense.

Female Cassowaries may mate with more than one male during each season and are sometimes seen hanging out with family groups.

The Southern Cassowary normally feeds alone. If two males meet, they may have a stand off in which both birds stand tall, fluff up their feathers and rumble at each other until one retreats. If a male and female meet, the male will move away, as the female is dominant.

The burden of preventing Cassowaries from disappearing from the wild is mainly being carried by Rainforest Rescue. This organisation is flanked by the Australian government and selected zoos, such as The Australian Zoo, home of the late Steve Irwin and now operated by his wife Terri and their two children, Bindi and Robert. This zoo has a specialised captive Cassorwary breeding campaign, imperative as wild Cassowary numbers dwindle dramatically.

At Mission Beach, Queensland, a Cassowary identification and tracking project remains underway, in which all members of the community are invited to take part. “The Tracking Of Judith” is one example of this project, in which a Mission Beach resident photographed and recorded the growth of Judith, a wild Cassowary, from chick to an adult.

The dense rainforest habitat combined with the Cassowary’s secretive nature make individual birds difficult to see. Although not a main cause of Cassowary deaths, hand-feeding alters the birds’ natural behaviour and disorients them, rendering them dependent on humans. Many threats endanger the Southern Cassowary, mostly due to increasing human presence in its habitat.

Loss Of Habitat

Loss of rainforest habitat is the primary threat to the Cassowaries of the Wet Tropics. Rainforest vegetation has been extensively cleared, particularly in lowland areas. By 1997, 81 percent of native vegetation had been cleared and remaining rainforest habitat was substantially fragmented, according to Rainforest Rescue.

While the clearing rate in the Wet Tropics has slowed considerably since 1997, land clearing for housing development still continues and threatens local populations of Cassowaries already subsisting in degraded or fragmented habitats outside of protected areas. An increase in human population brings more cars and dogs to a locality, which increases the risk to Cassowaries.

Cassowary which has been struck by a car.

Habitat fragmentation due to clearing disrupts Cassowary movement patterns and can separate parts of an individual bird’s territory, such as the habitat associated with feeding and breeding activities. Habitat fragmentation can also separate birds from each other, resulting in genetic isolation and local extinctions.

Habitat degradation caused by selective logging, changed fire regimes and invasion of weed species also affects Cassowaries by reducing the quality of habitat and food sources.

Roads and vehicle strikes

Cassowary which has been struck by a car.

Roads are a major cause of direct Cassowary mortality due to vehicle strikes. According to data from The Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage Protection Threatened Species Unit and Garners Beach Cassowary Rehabilitation Centre, there were 104 Cassowary deaths from vehicle strikes between 1992 and January 2014. Attacks on Cassowaries by feral and free-ranging domestic dogs are also a major cause of mortality and injury, especially around developed areas such as Mission Beach.

Disease

Southern Cassowaries can also fall prey to diseases such as avian tuberculosis, which is caused by the bacterium mycobacterium avium. It can affect wild and domestic birds around the world and is spread by ingestion or inhalation of the bacterium, which can survive in the environment for many years. It causes chronic wasting in infected birds and there is no known treatment.
Stressed birds may be more susceptible to disease and pressures such as food shortages, habitat loss and the presence of predators may make Cassowaries more susceptible to disease.

CyclonesSevere cyclones are a natural part of living in the Wet Tropics and they can have a huge impact, not just on local residents and infrastructure, but also on the rain-forests and wildlife, including the Cassowary. Cyclones can result in major losses of Cassowary food sources and habitats. Not only are the birds in danger from falling trees and rising waters during storms, they must travel further to find food, increasing their exposure to risks such as road crossings.

Cassowary in the rainforest.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry crossed the tropical North Queensland coast near Innisfail during the morning of 20 March 2006 and is regarded as the most powerful cyclone to affect Queensland in almost a century. In the wake of this cyclone, one third of the cassowary population died as a result of the loss of their natural food sources, dog attacks and vehicle strikes as they left the fragmented and destroyed habitat in search of food.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi was a very powerful and destructive tropical cyclone that made landfall in northern Queensland, Australia on 3 February, 2011. Cyclone Yasi made landfall in Mission Beach with wind gusts estimated to have reached 290km/h, leaving behind significant damage.

A storm surge estimated to have reached 7m (23ft) destroyed several structures along the coast and pushed up to 300 m inland. Most of the beach had lost its sand and every structure was damaged to some degree. The worst affected areas were around Tully, Tully Heads, Silkwood, Mission Beach, Innisfail and Cardwell. In the wake of Cyclone Yasi, Rainforest Rescue came to the rescue to help fund the feeding of the Cassowaries.

Poo That Grows Trees

Rainforest Rescue best describes the importance of the Cassowary’s place in rainforest hierarchy: “the Cassowary is the rainforest gardener, a ‘keystone species’ that maintains the balance and diversity of its rainforest home through its role as a seed disperser. The digested seeds help prevent fruit fly infestation.

The Southern Cassowary’s main food is rainforest fruits, and the gentle treatment of the fruits through the Cassowary’s primitive digestive system means the seeds are passed unharmed and ready for germination in their own “compost heap” of dung!”

Cassowary fruit and habitat layout.

Cassowaries are known to eat the fruit of at least 180 species (52 families, 102 genera) of which 149 are woody trees. Forty-five of these plants have large fruit that are mostly dispersed by the Southern Cassowary over long distances.

In Queensland’s rainforests, Southern Cassowaries are the only native animal capable of dispersing the seeds of large-fruited plants and trees over long distances, ensuring the continued balance and biodiversity of the rainforest plant community.

Conserving Cassowaries has flow-on effects for other threatened rainforest species such as the mahogany glider and northern quoll, for which the fruit also provides a major food source.

Habitat

Southern Cassowaries live primarily in lowland tropical rainforest, but they also use other types of forest such as eucalypt, mangrove, and tea tree. They are also seen on beaches adjacent to these habitats. Like most animals, Cassowaries need access to fresh clean water for drinking, and bathing.

Each adult Cassowary maintains a home range or territory of about 100Ha. The home ranges of males may overlap with each other’s and with those of females. The loss of Cassowary habitat due to farming and residential development in Northern Queensland is affecting the number of Southern Cassowaries the environment can support.

Cassowary feet with talon claws.

The loss of good quality habitat development (degradation) and purchasing of small parcels of land for homes (fragmentation) is also affecting the Cassowary. Birds living in areas of degraded or fragmented, low-quality habitat need larger home ranges and so the environment cannot support as many birds.

The Importance Of Corridors

A wildlife corridor is an area of habitat connecting wildlife populations separated by human activities or structures (such as roads, development, or logging). Due to habitat fragmentation, local populations can become dispersed, resulting in reduced genetic diversity and in-breeding that often occurs within isolated populations.

Wildlife corridor layout.

Creating corridors allows for the reconnection of fragmented habitats and facilitates the re-establishment of populations that have been affected by fragmentation or eliminated due to random events such as fires or cyclones.

The image above highlights key habitat values including feeding, breeding and resting habitat, water availability and movement corridors. Feeding areas change with fruiting seasons, and traditional food supplies can fail due to events such as cyclones. Cassowary habitat also supports at least 106 plant and 37 animal species identified as threatened under state and federal legislation.

Fast Facts

Cassowary.

*  Cassowaries have pointed beaks and do not have tongues.
*  They must pick up and toss food to the back of their throats.
*  One of the Southern Cassowary’s most defining features is its casque, the helmet-like structure on its head.
*  Duck-billed dinosaurs that roamed the earth 65 million years ago (e.g. corythosaurus and parasaurolophus) had similar ‘wedged’ heads.
*  Each casque is unique. The casque begins growing in juveniles when their plumage changes from striped to brown.
*  Casques are thought to be used in communication as an amplifier or receiver of the birds’ low-  frequency infrasound vocalisations.

Voice

Cassowary.

Cassowaries communicate with each other through a range of hissing, rumbling, coughing and booming noises. The low-frequency, booming calls of the Southern Cassowary are at the bottom end of human hearing. At 32 Hertz, they are the lowest known vocalisations of all birds and have been described as ‘strange’ and ‘unsettling’ by people who have heard them.

These low frequency sounds, known as ‘infrasound,’ are thought to travel over long distances, even through dense rainforest foliage. Elephants and emus also communicate via infrasound.

During acts of aggression, Cassowaries are known to make a booming gurgle and hiss noise.

Breeding and Raising Young

Adult Cassowaries live alone and are territorial, except during breeding, which typically takes place during the dry season (May-Oct). The females are usually dominant but are tolerant of males during this time. The female selects a mate with whom she may spend days or even weeks, during which time the male will ‘court’ his partner through dance, display and vocalising.

From Chick to Chic

Cassowary chic.

Cassowary chicks hatch with brown and cream striped plumage, perfect camouflage for their sun-dappled habitat. Chicks do not yet have a casque and their wattles are very small and cream coloured. Chicks are totally dependent on their father for food and protection.

At 4-5 months of age chicks begin to lose their stripes, which are replaced by longer brown feathers, similar to the black plumage of adult birds. In juvenile birds, the wattle begins to grow slowly and turn a pale pink colour, and the casque begins to grow.

Juvenile birds are still in Dad’s care but begin to forage and explore independently or with their siblings. They are considered sub-adult when they become independent of their father, which normally occurs when they are about 9 months old (if the father does not find a mate the following year, the chicks may remain with up to 18 months). During this stage, the plumage begins to darken, the distinctive blue head and neck colouration emerges, and the casque and wattles continue to grow and darken.

Cassowaries attain sexual maturity between about 3- 4 years of age. Adult birds have distinctive glossy black hair-like plumage, a tall casque, a brightly coloured bare head and neck and dangling red wattles.

What’s Underneath? Cassowary Dissection:

What You Can Do

Please consider helping the Cassowary, a bird that plays such an important part in rainforest ecology. Losing wild Cassowaries would be catastrophic to all inhabitants living in the Queensland tropics.

One way to help Cassowaries is to donate to SaveTheCassowary.org.au, an organization that is doing so much to help these birds, including playing the role as first responders to injured Cassowaries. They need all the help they can get.

Rainforest Rescue

The importance of the Cassowary and the significant role it plays in rainforest ecology needs to shouted from the rooftops. Education and awareness needs to be dramatically lifted if the wild Southern Cassowary is to be saved from extinction. One they are gone, they are gone forever.

Thank you for reading,

Michele Brown