(Airlie Beach) With its velociraptor-like claws, piercing eyes and neon-blue neck, the southern cassowary is a fearsome bird from the rainforests of northern Australia, but with only a few thousand left in the wild, it is at risk of extinction.
“It’s a modern-day dinosaur,” notes Peter Rowles, president of a local group that protects these endangered birds.
However, it is better to admire these birds as large as humans from afar, with sharp claws 10 centimeters long.
Fiercely protecting their territory, they hiss and emit a deep growl when threatened.
“When you first look at them eye to eye, it can be intimidating, because they have big eyes, they look straight at you,” says Peter Rowles, acknowledging that they “have the ‘looking a bit fierce’.
These flightless birds are only found in Australia, the island of New Guinea and some Pacific islands.
The Australian government considers them an endangered species and estimates that there are around 4,500 left in the wild. They are part of the “keystone species”, meaning they play an essential role in maintaining biodiversity and dispersing rainforest seeds.
If these cassowaries disappear, tropical rainforests will suffer.
“We consider that if we can save the cassowary we can also save enough of its habitat to keep a lot of other species alive,” Rowles said.
His association is increasing its efforts to save these formidable birds, which measure 1.5 meters and can weigh up to 75 kilos.
They are working to install signs encouraging drivers to slow down, redesign roads to better protect natural habitats and run a hospital for injured birds.
The main threats to the helmeted cassowary are car collisions, clearing of natural habitats, dog attacks and climate change.
“Cassiowaries are not aggressive when they are well treated,” Rowles points out, with few human deaths attributed to this species.
A young Australian man was killed in 1926 after chasing one of these birds which severed his jugular vein, while in Florida a man died in 2019 after an attack by his pet cassowary.
Over the past 300 years, around 100 species of Australian flora and fauna have disappeared from the planet.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the pace is likely to accelerate.
“There is so much to do and the resources are not available to make a significant impact,” says Darren Grover, a WWF Australia manager.
“Some 2000 species are on the Australian government’s threatened species list and each year more species are added,” he notes.
Climate change, habitat loss and invasive species are all threats, explains Grover.
The Australian government has put in place a national plan to save this iconic bird, as it does for many other species, in collaboration with indigenous associations and conservation groups.
Much of Australia’s nature conservation efforts focus on protecting keystone species, a concept developed by zoologists in the 1960s.
Grover says this is the best approach when resources are limited because it has knock-on effects on other animals in the ecosystem.
But this strategy has only limited scope, he warns. “I don’t think we’ll ever do enough to save Australia’s wildlife.” “Cassiowaries are an amazing species and any time you get the opportunity to see them in the wild it’s fantastic.”
“But you have to be careful because they are naturally cranky birds, they are big and powerful and we have to give them some space.”