Australia’s fearsome “modern” dinosaur bird cassowaries on the brink of extinction

Airlie Beach, Australia:

With Velociraptor-like feet and a striking neon blue neck, the Southern Cassowary makes a fearsome figure in the rainforests of north-eastern Australia.

These human-sized birds – and their 10-centimetre (four-inch) sword-sharp talons – are best admired from a distance.

“It’s a modern dinosaur,” said Peter Rolls, president of a community group that protects endangered birds.

They are fiercely territorial, and will hiss and make a deep rumbling sound when they feel threatened.

“When you first look them in the eye, it can be intimidating because their eyes are big, and they’re looking right at you and they look a little fierce,” Rolls said.

These flightless birds are found only in Australia, New Guinea and some Pacific islands.

The Australian government has listed them as an endangered species and it is estimated that there are around 4,500 left in the wild.

They are considered a “keystone species,” meaning they play an important role in maintaining biodiversity and dispersing seeds in the rainforest.

If cassowaries become extinct the rainforests will suffer.

“We thought that if we could save the cassowary, we could save enough habitat for other species to survive,” Rolls said.

His group is doing everything it can to save the endangered birds, which can grow up to 1.5 metres (five feet) tall and weigh up to 75 kilograms (165 pounds).

This includes installing signs urging drivers to slow down, redesigning roads to better protect native habitats and running a cassowary hospital for injured birds.

The main threats to the cassowary are car collisions, loss of native habitat, dog attacks, and climate change.

“When cassowaries are treated well they are not aggressive,” Rolls said. There have been only a few recorded deaths from this species.

A young Australian boy was killed in 1926 when he chased the bird, which severed his jugular vein, while in 2019 a Florida man died when his pet cassowary attacked him.

‘Naturally irritable birds’

Over the past 300 years, nearly 100 of Australia’s unique flora and fauna species have disappeared from the Earth.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), this rate of extinction will likely increase.

“There is still much to be done and resources simply aren’t in place to make a significant impact,” WWF Australia’s Acting Chief Conservation Officer Darren Grover said.

“We’re looking at almost 2,000 species on the Australian Government’s threatened species list and more species are being added to that list every year,” he said.

Threats include climate change, habitat loss and invasive species, Grover said.

The Australian government has embarked on a national recovery plan to save the iconic cassowary bird – as it does for many other species – involving working with Indigenous and conservation groups.

Much of the country’s conservation efforts are focused on protecting flagship species, a concept developed by zoologists in the 1960s.

Grover said this is the best approach when resources are limited because it also impacts other animals living in the habitat.

But he warned that this strategy could only go so far: “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to do enough to save our wildlife in Australia.”

“Cassowaries are an amazing species and any time you see them in the wild it’s spectacular,” he said.

“But be careful, because they are naturally rambunctious birds, they are big and powerful and we need to give them some space.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)