F
ound only in tropical north
Queensland, the cassowary is
most frequently sighted in Mission
Beach, 140km south of Cairns,
where rainforest spills onto 14km of idyllic,
tricoloured coastline and the highest
density of cassowaries is found. But that’s
nothing to brag about.
Sighting a cassowary in Mission Beach
might be easy but it’s not because there’s
a lot of them left. In fact, the town’s forests
may harbour as few as 50 adult birds —
nobody knows for sure — and refuge for
these endangered creatures is dwindling.
As developers continue to carve up
what’s left of available land squeezed
between the Coral Sea and the soaring
mountain divide to the west, the
cassowary’s future looks ever bleaker.
Championing the town’s burgeoning
growth is an expansionist local council
keen to transform Mission Beach into the
adventure capital of Australia: mountain
biking trails, sky diving viewing platforms,
a controversial yacht marina and more.
Today, there is little natural habitat left
for the cassowary to call home and this
solitary creature, which favours a solid
seven square kilometres of territory, is being
forced out of the ever-shrinking Licuala
palm forests and into suburbia.
On a daily search for food, mates and
new territories, Mission Beach cassowaries
are leading their chicks down a risky path:
through high-speed traffic, into backyards
and farms, encountering backyard dogs and
hand-feeding humans en route.
In February this year, a juvenile
cassowary died after being hit by a car in
Mission Beach. Some reports suggest that
locals had regularly fed the bird, luring
it in, but this is not an isolated incident.
So far this year in Mission Beach, threecassowaries have died on its roads and
others await recovery and release from the
town’s purpose-built cassowary hospital.
No one knows how many more fall prey to
dog attacks and pig traps each year.Into the wild
I set out to meet the cassowary on its
traditional turf in Djiru National Park,
Mission Beach’s last large stronghold
of Licuala ramsayi (fan palm) forest. The
most spectacular of all palms, the Licuala
raises its two-metre-wide fronds 15
metres overhead, blocking out the sun
with their vivid green mosaic and littering
the forest floor with fragrant fleshy fruit
that cassowaries adore.
As I wander, epiphytes stud the high
canopy and, trackside, giant strangler figs
throttle their hosts while thorny tendrils of
lawyer cane grip their way through the forest.
I tread carefully, quiet in my early morning
solitude, but the encounter I’d hoped for in
this impossibly thick forest never comes.
My search continues along Lacey Creek
where I sit by serene, freshwater pools,
and later, on the Cutten Brothers Track,
following bright blue Ulysses butterflies
along a path strewn with wild nutmeg,
past pandanus palms and bush almond
trees towards the open sea. The views are
surreal but it’s not until I leave the forest
completely that the cassowary finds me.The cassowary’s
last stand
They are Far North Queensland’s most incongruous neighbours:
tourists, sea changers and land developers chasing a slice
of tropical paradise versus the world’s most at-risk
ratite — the fl amboyant, fl ightless and very much
endangered southern cassowary.Wo rds CATHERINE LAWSON Photography DAVID BRISTOWClockwise from top:
Habitat loss and fragmentation remain the
biggest challenge to cassowary survival.
Ever-shrinking rainforests are forcing
cassowaries out into suburbia.
With world heritage-listed reef and
rainforest, Mission Beach has magnetised
fans for decades. Djiru National Park is the
region’s last large stronghold of Licuala
Ramsayi fan palm forest.110 | wellbeing.com.au
planet
CASSOWARY