What’s happening to cassowaries in the wild?

• • The southern cassowary is listed as an endangered species in Australia, with only about 2,000 thought to be left in the wild.
• • The main problem cassowaries face is that more than 80 per cent of their rainforest habitat has been cleared in the last 100 years. That means it’s hard for them to find food and somewhere safe to live.
• • Mission Beach is a cassowary ‘hot spot’ where cassowaries often turn up in people’s backyards. It is also an area where road accidents are the greatest cause of cassowary deaths. Dog attacks, wild pigs eating eggs and destroying nests, and natural events like cyclones are also responsible for their decline.
• • Although the rehabilitation centre Flynn visits in Mister Cassowary is entirely fictional, there is a real cassowary rehabilitation centre at Mission Beach called Garners Beach Cassowary Rehabilitation Centre. The rangers at this centre provide care for injured, orphaned and ‘problem’ cassowaries, some of which are later released back into the wild.
• • North Queensland residents love the cassowary so much that they are allowing organisations such as Rainforest Rescue to plant cassowary trees on their land to replenish the cassowary’s native habitat.
• • Like Grandad Barney, the residents of Mission Beach have created a corridor for their local population of cassowaries by stopping a large parcel of land, known locally as Lot 66, from being sold to developers. With the help of the Queensland Trust for Nature, the land was purchased by the residents and now provides food, trees and shelter for cassowaries and other native animals so they can move safely between the rainforest and the coast.
• • The CSIRO is developing a way of identifying cassowaries from their scats. It is hoped that tracking the movements of cassowaries will assist in saving them from extinction.