Discover 4

18 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

THE CRUX

FROM TOP: KEVIN SCHAFER/NATUREPL.COM; EDWIN GIESBERS/NATUREPL.COM; COURTESY OF SAMUEL URLACHER

A Brush With a

Feathered Foe

PERSONAL

How one researcher narrowly escaped a nasty face-off.

A RESEARCHER INVESTIGATING HOW the stress levels of people in

non-industrialized societies differ from those of modern Americans found

himself in a different kind of stressful situation when he came face-to-face

with a killer.

Biological anthropologist Samuel Urlacher left the urban jungle of

Boston, where he was a graduate student at Harvard University, for the

actual jungle of Papua New Guinea. Since 2013, he’s worked among the

Garisakang, an isolated clan of about 500 foragers and garden-scale farmers

living in tropical villages without electricity or running water. Urlacher, now

a postdoctoral fellow at Hunter College in New York, has collected more

than 1,600 saliva samples in order to measure the stress hormone cortisol.

But sometimes, fieldwork has its surprises. Like the day Urlacher crossed

paths with a cassowary, one of the world’s most dangerous birds. At least

5 feet tall and flightless, cassowaries can sprint at 31 mph — “faster than

Usain Bolt,” Urlacher says — and deliver fatal slashes with their daggerlike

middle talons. There have been at least 150 recorded cases of the creature

attacking people — with at least one of those ending with someone dead.

Urlacher describes the encounter, which occurred as he and his local

guide, Mulapa, were hiking from his research village to a neighboring

community that was interested in his work.

Biological anthropologist

Samuel Urlacher ran into

one of the world’s most

dangerous birds while

in Papua New Guinea.

We are carrying machetes.

Mulapa is ahead of me, and

we’re walking down the trail. We

hear something coming from the

other direction on the trail. It’s

big, making a lot of noise and

sounds like it has two legs. So

I’m expecting a human to come

out. But all of a sudden, trotting

directly toward us appears this

huge, fully grown adult cassowary.

It’s taller than I am and probably

120 or 130 pounds.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time now

in Papua New Guinea, but I’m still

not used to huge birds running at

me. It takes me a couple of seconds

before I realize, “Oh, this is what’s

happening.” And by the time I

realize what is going on, Mulapa

has dropped his machete and is

climbing up a tree in front of me.

I think I shout a couple of choice

words and then drop my machete

and start climbing as fast as I can,

too, up the tree next to me.

I’ve only gotten up maybe a few

feet when it’s right on me. But

fortunately, it then turns away

and veers off the trail a little

bit, and just stares at us. Then it

walks off, and we’re safe.

It could have been a very

bad story had it decided to

actually get me. So we survived,

laughed about it, then picked

up our machetes and moved on.

 AS TOLD TO BRIDGET ALEX

IN HIS OWN WORDS...