Protecting Australia’s most charismatic killer bird

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australian agency. To register to receive it by email. This week’s issue was written by Natasha Frost, a reporter at the Australian agency.

Meet an all-ages Australian supermodel: 6 feet tall with a sculpted face, endless legs and piercing orange eyes.

“They’re the glamor animal for the rainforest, here in North Queensland,” said Justin McMahon, a land manager for Rainforest rescuea non-profit environmental organization that protects and restores the Australian rainforest.

But the southern cassowary, a secretive, emu-like bird famous for its death kick and razor-sharp, throat-slicing talons on each foot, isn’t just a pretty sight.

As the draft of a government recovery plan for the species released this week describes, the birds are what is known as a “keystone species”, indicating that they play an important role in the ecosystem.

Perhaps their most important characteristic from an environmental point of view is their role as seed dispersers. Cassowaries use their wide mouth to gobble up whole fruits in one go, and their powerful legs to transport those seeds (safe in their bellies) far and wide. And at 130 pounds, they have an impressive appetite, allowing them to consume copious amounts of fruit, as well as anything else they can scoop up.

(They also have a softer side: cassowary males are loving fathers, sit on the eggs for nearly two months, then take on the primary parental role for the first nine months of their chicks’ lives.)

Southern cassowary populations have been observed declining for nearly 80 years, and the species was officially listed as endangered in 2000.

At the time of that recording, the birds were at particular risk because their habitat was being cleared. A quarter of a century later, they face other threats: road traffic; dogs and dingoes; “habitat fragmentation”, where their natural rainforest has been broken up and they cannot easily move between areas; and climate change.

It’s hard to pinpoint how endangered they are, or even how many there are, although estimates range from about 4,000 to 10,000 in northwest Queensland, the only part of the country where they live, Mr McMahon said. “No one will ever know a good number, unfortunately.”

That’s because, for all its fearsome reputation, the southern cassowary is powerfully shy and remarkably good at making itself scarce. Despite standing six feet tall, the birds have been known to stand within spitting distance of tourists without being noticed – in part because they are so adept at staying very still.

Mr. McMahon describes them as more “emo” than “emu.” “They live in their dark abyss of the rainforest, and they don’t like being looked at the wrong way or talked about in the wrong way,” he said.

Attempts to track them with geolocation trackers often fail – they simply peck anything attached to their bodies – and their solitary demeanor can make it difficult to study their behavior.

But it is clear that man takes its toll on the animals. As the number of cars in the region has increased, in part due to increased self-driving tourism, some birds have become victims of collisions.

Climate change has also had an effect: higher temperatures can cause springs and pools to dry up, causing stress for the chicks.

In warmer years, the animals’ breeding seasons are longer, giving “house-wrecking” females the opportunity to lure lone fathers away from their brood and onto a new clutch of eggs. The chicks, stranded and orphaned, sometimes approach humans as substitute parents.

But while cassowary babies are undoubtedly adorablewith distinctive stripes and fuzzy bodies, they may not be the kind of creature you want in your home for the long haul (like discovered a cassowary owner from Florida in 2019, at a terrible price).

Now for the stories of the week.

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