“Their behaviours have changed
enormously,” she says, an adjustment
to the fact that roads and urban
development have severed the traditional
pathways that link the forests where
cassowaries forage. “They have to come
out into the open where they are seen and
they are not shy any more.”Cassowaries in Mission Beach have
learnt that people mean food and their
search for it is taking them into dangerous
new territories. Moreover, says Liz,
suburban noise is interrupting how they
communicate and the birds and their
offspring routinely play chicken in traffic
that zooms past at 80km/h.
Peter Rowles, president of C4 (the
long-standing Community for Coastal and
Cassowary Conservation), agrees that
the threat of traffic and dogs endures.
When I make contact with Peter, I find him
at Mission Beach’s cassowary hospital,
delivering native forest fruits to a juvenile
cassowary that has just been hit by a car.
“Thankfully, the driver slowed down
before it hit the bird, so it’s still alive and
looks set to be released in the next week,”
Peter says. “Alarmingly, though, a dog
turned up on the road while we were at the
scene of the road accident, within the first
half-hour of a bird being hit,” he says.
Peter admits that dogs and roads
remain a serious threat but says that
habitat loss remains the number-one
challenge for cassowary survival: “If we
continue to lose habitat then little by
little we will lose the birds, but it’s the
connectivity for the cassowary that’s
important, protecting secure corridors
between areas where’s there are still good
patches of forest. The presence of dogs
and roads only restricts the movement of
birds and makes things worse.”
Tackling the enormous challenge of
saving the cassowary means buying back
land, revegetating wildlife corridors and
encouraging locals and visitors to get on
board — and that’s what C4 does best. The
volunteer-run group has harnessed great
community enthusiasm to spearhead four
local replanting projects and is working
with a host of government and like-minded
conservation groups across the far north
on an ambitious plan to build and protect
a wildlife corridor from Mission Beach all
the way to the Tablelands.
With a beachfront environment centre
that acts as the town’s premier visitor
centre, a thriving nursery and a replanting
work going on, the team at C4 is not giving
up without a fight.Cassowary etiquette
If you are lucky enough to spot
a cassowary in the wild, keep your
distance. Never approach cassowaries
or their chicks (males will defend
them), never feed them and do not
let them approach you. Most
importantly, slow down
when driving through
cassowary habitat.Clockwise from top: Spotted increasingly
in suburban backyards, the behaviour of
the cassowary has been forever changed.
On a daily search for food, Mission Beach
cassowaries are leading their chicks down
a risky path. C4 President Peter Rowles says
the threat of traffic and dogs endures. Get
involved by volunteering in C4’s nursery where
great replanting projects begin.114 | wellbeing.com.au
planet
CASSOWARY