Save the Cassowary

By 1997, 81% of the lowland native vegetation, the Cassowaries essential habitat, had been cleared, with the rest of the rainforest habitat in the Wet Tropics highly fragmented. In the past decade, clearing rates have slowed from 3,000 hectares to 1,000 hectares a year, but this is relatively constant. (Latch 2007)

Ongoing habitat destruction is driving the reduction of the number of Cassowaries left in the wild. As the clearing and fragmentation of rainforest for residential development continues, the Cassowary is driven closer to extinction day by day.

The rainforest of the Wet Tropics is subject to cyclones, which a healthy, intact rainforest can recover from relatively quickly. However, rainforests that have been fragmented take a longer time to recover, leaving the Cassowaries prone to starving and suffering exposed to the hot sun and for longer periods of time.

Over the past 15 years there has been 56 recorded Cassowary deaths related to direct collisions with vehicles in Mission Beach alone. (C4 Recovery or Extinction)

The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area is already criss-crossed with 3777 kilometers of highways, roads and tracks. Approximately half the Cassowaries habitat in the Daintree lowlands are intersected by roads. (Crome and Moore, 1993),(Latch, 2007).

Adult male Cassowaries often have chicks in their care up until 18 months old. If a male adult Cassowary is struck and killed by a car, it is likely that his chicks would also perish without his protection and guidance, destroying the next generation before they mature.

In the Wet Tropics, most properties are unfenced and hence unrestrained, unaccompanied dogs are regularly encountered in the Daintree and the rainforest surrounding Mission Beach. Whilst there is a recent record of a dog killing a young cassowary in the Daintree in March 2009, most killings of Cassowaries and other rare and threatened wildlife by dogs go unnoticed and unrecorded.

Fencing, particularly at Mission Beach around subdivisions, interrupt the movement of Cassowaries. Cassowaries don't understand fencing and can end up trapped endlessly pacing on either side.