Jungle Royalty

Australia’s cassowaries aren’t as rare as we thought but there’s still much to discover about these enigmatic rainforest birds.

- John Pickrell

THE WORLD’S SECOND-HEAVIEST bird remains shrouded in mystery. Living in the shadowy world of northern Queensland’s ancient rainforests, the southern cassowary still sometimes surprises scientists and wildlife carers with unusual and rarely documented behaviours.

For example, there’s the question of diet. Although cassowaries mostly eat fruits and seeds, they occasionally add a little protein from fish, crustaceans and even roadkill, says Wren McLean, an ecologist and conservation scientist with the Rainforest Trust in Mullumbimby, northern New South Wales. “They are known to go fishing by lowering themselves into a freshwater pool and opening up their feathers. They allow the small fish to come in and eat their dead skin cells,” says Wren, whose cassowary survey work has been supported by the AG Society. “Then they close their feathers, step out of the water, shake themselves and pick up the little fish.”

Dr David Westcott, a CSIRO zoologist based in Atherton, Queensland, who has studied cassowaries for many years, agrees “the different strategies they use to get a balanced and non-poisonous diet are interesting”. Being almost entirely frugivorous (fruit-eating) can be difficult, because many basic nutrients are poorly represented, so cassowaries “have to really be quite clever”, he says. To this end, cassowaries have been seen eating road-killed bandicoots, while the remains of crabs and even small birds have been found in cassowary faeces.