CASSOWARIES - Do they really exist?
Visitors unfamiliar with our wonderful wildlife often ask about Cassowaries. Why are they so hard to find? Do they really exisit?
Well, be assured, they do. Cassowaries have their own way of making a living. They are sometimes secretive, sometimes very visible but provided visitors take account of the cassowary's lifestyle it is relatively easy to spot them in habitats that support them. For us in Mossman this really means north of the Daintree River but cassowaries have been seen near the Mossman Gorge, on the Rex Highway out of Mossman to Jullaten and in the Tablelands and the Barron Gorge National Park. Further away cassowaries are often seen at Mission Beach wandering through gardens. But for us, cassowaries generally mean looking in the Daintree National park.
Cassowaries are members of the Ratite family of birds. Other ratites include Emus, Ostriches, Kiwis and Rheas. There are several species of Cassowary, including three in New Guinea and one in Australia - the Southern Cassowary. New Guinea is the cassowary's principal home but "our" cassowary found its way here when sea levels were lower and stayed on in the Tropical Rainforests of Far North Queensland as its habitiat in Australia shrank as rainfall patterns changed over the past 100,000 years.
Cassowaries are big. An adult stands around 1.8m metres tall and can stretch up to 2 metres. Females tend to be bigger than males, with larger casques but less colour and smaller neck wattles. The cassowary's casque is horny outside with a fiberous inside - its purpose is not known. One explanation is that it magnifies the Cassowaries lowcalls. Another is to assist the bird to push through thick undergrowth. They are flightless and covered in modified feathers like thick hairs. They have very large and powerful legs with big toes and long sharp claws. Cassowaries can be dangerous if surprised with chicks or cornered by visitors. Their muscular legs can inflict serious and sometimes fatal wounds. The last recorded death was a young boy in the early years of the 20th century at what is now called Cassowary Creek between Mossman and Port Douglas.
So why are they sometimes hard to find? Firstly they are forest birds, often of the deep forest. They are visiible only by chance in the forest - they move silently, call infrequently and anyway use only low rumble as a call which is hard to hear. They feed throughout the day but are most active after dawn and before dusk. When the cassowary crosses a road is the best time to see it. But they are birds of habit, and often appear at places regularly, for example near the car park at the Jindalba forest walk just past the Discovery Centre. Females are promiscuous and mate with as many males as takes their fancy. The egg/s are looked after by the male who guards the chick through its first year or so of life. The female plays no part in raising it. Chicks can walk immediately out of the egg; they are brown (with beige latitudinal stripes while really young) until their adult plumage starts to replace it at the end of its first year.
Cassowaries eat fruits, seeds, small arthropods and insects and probably take small animals if they can catch them. A good way to find out if cassowaries are around is to watch out for their droppings - large piles of voided seeds and fruit husks. We found eight piles of droppings once in the Barron Gorge, each progressivley warmer, and heard a cassowary calling. But despite keeping quiet and watching carefully we never caught up with it. Visits to the Daintree National park normally produce at least one cassowary each visit. Of course its a matter of luck but provided the timing is right and the habitat suitable visitors armed with the right knowledge can expect to come across this wonderful bird and often its chicks.
