Cassowary attacks
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest
Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
Cassowaries will not attack for no reason. But they can
be territorial, very defensive of their young or be expecting
food if people have been doing the wrong thing by feeding them
and there is quite a list of people having been chased, charged,
kicked, pushed, pecked, jumped on, and head-butted. Statistics
show that most cassowary attacks were actually self defence, they
are quite capable of killing dogs by gutting them with their sharp
claws on their huge feet and have even been rumoured to have killed
small horses.
Usually cassowaries are very shy but when they feel
threatened or want to protect their young they can lash out dangerously
with their powerful legs and jump and kick with both legs at once.
Their three-toed feet have sharp claws; the dagger-like middle
claw is 12 cm long.
Photo by Craig Campbell
Even this young cassowary has formidable claws
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Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest
Hideaway B&B
Awesome claws on this cassowary
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The best defence is to keep someting in front of you,
or go behind a tree, and step back slowly, or raise your arms to look
taller.
Cassowary attacking
Contributor unknown
Some cassowary videos...
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Close encounters of the bird kind:
Cairns - April 1995
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest
Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
Standing as tall as a man, a meeting with a cassowary can be quite intimidating.
The city of Cairns
is expanding and the suburb of Mt. Whitfield is pushing its way into
the rainforest. Several walkingtracks like the Blue Arrow and Red Arrow
trail wind their way through the rainforests here. Some people used
these trails to go jogging, which led to some encounters with cassowaries.
In April of 1995, Doon McColl was jogging along this trail, when she
heard a noise behind her. She turned to see a full size adult cassowary
running after her, so she ran like hell and then climbed a tree. The
big bird waited below for hours later until it finally wandered off.
A week later her boyfriend, Ray Willetts, was also chased. He tried
to lose the bird in the jungle and spent the day crashing through thorns
and lawyer cane while the huge bird followed effortlessly.
I recall listening to a local Cairns radio station where
a bloke rang up to tell his cassowary adventure and when the DJ started
making a joke out of it the man on the phone became agitated and said;
look mate, it was not f#&#ing funny, I never been so scared in all
my life!
Fact is, cassowaries like to follow you, if you walk, they will walk
behind you, if you run, they just run behind you. At Rainforest
Hideaway in Cape Tribulation I am used to having them around and
one day when I am standing in the carpark with one face to face suddenly
the phone rings. I turn my back to him and run to answer the phone,
and straightaway hear the pounding of cassowary feet right behind me,
so I stopped and he stopped too. That's why I don't believe all these
'cassowary attack' stories. If people were only chased and not kicked
that means the bird was not even trying to catch up with you.
Cape Tribulation
One day in 2003 several men were training as guides for
Mason's guided walks in Cape
Tribulation when they encountered a cassowary on one of the trails
in the rainforest. Rather than to go behind a tree they chose to run
and if there's anything a cassowary regards good fun it is chasing people
so they ran for miles with the big bird in pursuit. The national parks
ranger in Cape Tribulation gets 'cassowary attack' reports from time
to time from the tourists but all that has usually happend is that they
were chased for some distance, if the bird doesn't catch up with you
that means he is not trying to, as they can easily run three times as
fast as people.
Two cassowaries with two chicks often hangout on the beach
and around the picnic area at Cape
Tribulation beach and this has resulted several times in encounters
of the bird kind. One of the crew members of Rum Runner reef trips was
chased around the picnic area for some time, doing circles around trees,
even his football dodging techniques did not help, and he finally ran
in to the sea to escape the territorial cassowary that would not give
up.
Photo courtesy of Mission
Beach Sanctuary
Keep away from cassowaries with chicks, they will attack to protect
their young!
This cassowary attack report was sent in by Dawn Gray,
together with her husband she runs the Cape
Tribulation Farmstay where you can stay in cabins surrounded
by tropical fruit trees;
Whilst picking mangosteens, I was standing under the trees
looking up - Buttons my dog was sitting beside me. I heard this
hissing noise beside me and jumped behind the mangosteen tree
to get out of the way of whatever was behind me. It was an adult
cassowary and we happened to be between her and her two chicks
about 4 metres away. In the flash of a second, the adult bird
literally took a huge jump and landed on the sitting dog. Her
foot caught Buttons side and with my cries of "run Buttons,
run....." we both scrambled along the row of trees and away
from the very agitated cassowary. The chicks never seemed disturbed
by the event and went on grazing along the fruit tree rows. Buttons
went to the Mossman Vet for stitches (12) and I went to pay the
bill of $260. This adult cassowary has successfully raised many
chicks that we know of and from now on our dogs will stay close
to the house and not accompany us to the orchard.
This is far from the only dog in Cape Tribulation needing a trip
to the vet after an encounter, we have heard of many more.
Smiling survivors
Torben above is all smiles again after surviving an encounter
with a cassowary on the Mount Sorrow track in Cape
Tribulation, although he still has a swollen foot and two
painful fingers bandaged together.
The couple was on the way down from Mount Sorrow when they were
chased by a large cassowary. When all attempts to shake off the
bird or to stand their ground failed they laid down in the mud
and played dead. This calmed the bird, that had been hissing and
breathing heavily before. Unfortunately the bird then sat down
next to them and kept them prisoner, every time they made the
slightest move the cassowary would get up and make threatening
moves again. After about 40 minutes of being kept prisoner two
other hikers came past on the track and the cassowary got up and
went after them, and the lucky couple got up and rapidly made
their way down the hill and back to their cabin at Rainforest
Hideaway.
This cassowary was captured by rangers a year later after attacking
numerous people, including a German woman that was pecked on her
buttocks and an Indian man that got kicked in the back on the
beach, both had to be treated at the Cape Tribulation pharmacy.
Mossman - April 1926
Cassowaries are among the very few birds that can kill
a person but the only time on record that happened was in April 1926
when some boys were hunting a cassowary near Mossman, North Queensland.
The cassowary turned and chased the boys and one of them, 16 year old
Phillip McClean, fell over and got his jugular vein on his neck slashed
open by the sharp claw on the cassowary's foot.
San Francisco - February 2001
Cassowaries can be quite teritorial, even in captivity
as a worker in the San Francisco Zoo found out in February 2001 when
a 5 year old male attacked him and slashed his leg open. Tourists from
time to time report being chased or attacked by cassowaries but this
is usually due to people, against all good advice, feeding them so they
expect food when they see people and the next lot doing the right thing
and not feeding him will cause him to be aggressive not getting his
expected meal.
For more info on this amazing bird go to the cassowary
page
Have you been attacked by a cassowary or know about
an attack? Then let us know!
