Mister Cassowary

by Samantha Wheeler

  The chicks’ dad picked up a fallen berry. With it still in his beak, he made a sharp clicking noise and then dropped it to the ground. As soon as it fell, the chicks ran over and started pecking. Just like they had when I’d dropped the apple.

  Once they’d eaten the berry, the chicks looked at their dad and let out a high-pitched whistle. The dad answered with a rumble, fluffed up his feathers, and then turned and stepped towards the rainforest. I watched, my heart heavy. This was it. The final goodbye.

  Dad’s smile was warm. ‘What a relief,’ he said. ‘Looks like he’s okay, after all.’

  ‘I wonder where he’s been?’ mused Abby.

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. It didn’t matter. He was here now, right when his babies needed him. I kept my eyes glued to the cassowary family until every last feather had disappeared into the undergrowth. Then I swallowed the lump in my throat, and whispered, ‘There you are, Mister Cassowary. Three precious cassowaries, all safe and sound.’

  Charges Against Killer Cassowary – Dropped!

  Flynn Hutchinson, grandson of the late Barney Hutchinson, has spoken out for the first time about the circumstances surrounding his grand­father’s death.

  A year ago, Barney Hutchinson, nicknamed ‘Mister Cassowary’ by Mission Beach locals because of his tireless work to save the endangered birds, was rumoured to have been killed by a large, hand-reared cassowary called Big Blue. But at the family’s banana farm yesterday, nine-year-old Flynn told our reporter that this wasn’t true. ‘Grandad had a heart attack in the forest and died before anyone could help him. The news­papers made out that Big Blue had attacked him. But he didn’t.’

  The massive bird remained on the loose after Mr Hutchinson’s death, but was recently captured at the Cassowary Rehabilitation Centre where he had threatened Flynn’s father, Steve Hutchinson. It was this encounter with Big Blue that convinced the family to set the record straight. ‘Cassowaries don’t mean to hurt anyone,’ Flynn said. ‘It’s when they’re hungry that the problems start. That’s why we need to preserve their rainforest.’

  In a further step to help the cassowaries, Steve today announced he will sell their banana farm to the recently established buyback scheme, a program that aims to protect the cassowaries’ native habitat from development. ‘My son helped me see things in a new light,’ explained Steve. ‘It’s taken me a while, but now I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

  Former head ranger at the Cassowary Rehabilitation Centre and spokesperson for the scheme, Mr Walter Boston, spoke of his delight upon receiving the news. ‘Caring for cassowaries was Barney’s lifelong passion,’ Walter said. ‘We expect to plant over 500 saplings on the land in the next six months, which will help provide food and shelter for cassowaries as they move between the rainforest and the coast.’

  Flynn, a self-confessed cassowary-lover said, ‘This is just what my grandad, Mister Cassowary, would have wanted.’

  Cool cassowary facts

  Flynn knew nothing about cassowaries before he arrived at Mission Beach. Absolutely nothing. Did you know anything about them before reading this story? Like Flynn, I learnt a lot about cassowaries while writing Mister Cassowary. In this section you’ll discover a few interesting facts Flynn and I found out along the way.

  Did you know that …

  •The southern cassowary is the only species of cassowary found in Australia. It lives in north-east Queensland.

  •Cassowaries get their name from two Papuan words: kasu, which means horned, and weri, which means head.

  •Like emus and ostriches, cassowaries are ‘ratites’, meaning they are flightless birds.

  •Cassowaries are Australia’s heaviest flightless bird, weighing between 35–80 kilograms. They can grow up to 2 metres tall.

  •Cassowaries can live for up to 40 years in the wild.

  •Female cassowaries lay about four eggs in a clutch. Each egg weighs about half a kilo. The female then abandons the nest, leaving the male to keep the eggs warm. Once hatched, the male continues to look after the chicks until they are between 7–18 months old.

  •The cassowary is a solitary animal. Once it is old enough, it is banished from its father’s territory and has to find its own place to live. Each cassowary claims an area that can be up to 7 square kilometres.

  •Cassowaries eat approximately 150–200 different fruit species. They also eat insects, small frogs and have acquired a taste for human food like Chiko Rolls and chilli con carne.

  •Cassowaries don’t have a tongue. They gulp their fruit whole and pass the seeds out in their poop or ‘scats’. Each scat contains hundreds, possibly thousands of seeds, enabling rainforest trees to spread over long distances when the seeds germinate.

  •The cassowary casque is the spongy helmet on top of its head. Each one is unique, and there are different theories as to what it is used for. Some think it protects their heads, but recent studies suggest it is also utilised by the cassowary in the creation of their unique sound. Either way, it adds to the cassowaries’

  unusual dinosaur-like features.

  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.

  What can you do?

  Everyone can help to protect our native animals, including our remaining cassowaries. If you live in or visit an area where native animals live (remember cassowaries only live in north-east Queensland), you can help them by following these tips:

  •Plant food trees to make feeding grounds and safe corridors for native animals and birds to move around.

  •Ask adults to slow down and drive carefully through areas where native animals live.

  •Restrain your pets, especially if you know that native animals live in the area.

  •Never feed wildlife, particularly on the side of the road, where they might get hit by passing cars. If you feed them, they could come to rely on you, their health will suffer and they may starve when you leave. It may also make animals like cassowaries aggressive towards people.

  •Check out the websites below for more information and ideas on how to help.

 
; Useful websites

  savethecassowary.org.au

  Rainforest Rescue is a partnership organisation that campaigns to raise awareness of the plight of the cassowary. Their website provides a one-stop shop about all things cassowary, and is a great site to learn more about how we can save them. It details information on planting rainforest corridors that Grandad Barney was so keen to create. It also contains detailed scientific information about cassowaries.

  www.missionbeachcassowaries.com

  Mission Beach Cassowaries is an easy-to-read and helpful website containing cool information about Mission Beach’s cassowaries, such as why they make their unusual sounds and how they see. The site’s photo gallery is breathtaking, their blog fascinating (check out their article about ‘Tracking Judith’) and there are lots of links to other interesting sites as well.

  www.cassowaryconservation.asn.au

  Community for Coastal and Cassowary Conservation (C4) is a not-for-profit, voluntary, environmental organisation based at Mission Beach. Its members work tirelessly to propagate trees and create cassowary corridors, as well as raise awareness about these beautiful birds. The C4 Environment Centre at Mission Beach is open for visitors, grows a nursery of cassowary-food plants, and has cassowary eggs for the public to hold.

  www.ehp.qld.gov.au

  This website contains lots of information about many of our native animals and the environment. If you type ‘cassowary’ into the search box, you will find fantastic facts about cassowaries and what is being done to protect them, plus a downloadable fact sheet on being ‘cass-o-wary’ to keep you safe around cassowaries.

  www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/sprat.pl

  This government website, called SPRAT (Species Profile and Threats Database), is useful to search for species that have been listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. It also provides detailed information on the southern cassowary, such as distribution maps, movement patterns and life cycle.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my family and friends for your continued support and enthusiasm for my stories, and to the wonderful readers who inspire me to keep writing. Thanks to my fellow adventurer, Ann Harth, for being brave enough to show me cassowary country, and to Marci Dahlenburg for your unfailing encouragement and wise advice.

  I am also grateful to the May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust (MGCLT) for entrusting me with a wonderful Creative Time Fellowship, and to all the members of the MGCLT support team, for your care and attention. Thanks also to Fran Knight for, among other things, introducing me to the cassowary at Adelaide Zoo.

  For technical matters, I thank Peter Rowles, from the Community for Coastal and Cassowary Conservation (C4) at Mission Beach. And finally, a huge thank you to the remarkable team at UQP, in particular Kristy Bushnell, the most patient and talented editor alive, cover designer and illustrator Jo Hunt, proofreader Katie Evans, and my publisher Kristina Schulz for your support and friendship.

  First published 2015 by University of Queensland Press

  PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

  www.uqp.com.au

  uqp@uqp.uq.edu.au

  © Samantha Wheeler 2015

  This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may

  be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form

  or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be

  made to the publisher.

  Cover design and illustrations by Jo Hunt

  Typeset in 13/20pt Adobe Garamond Pro by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group, Melbourne

  Mister Cassowary was developed as part of a

  Creative Time Residential Fellowship provided

  by the May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust.

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  National Library of Australia

  Wheeler, Samantha, author.

  Mister cassowary / Samantha Wheeler.

  ISBN 978 0 7022 5388 1 (pbk)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 5620 2 (pdf)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 5621 9 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 5622 6 (kindle)

  For primary school age.

  Cassowaries – Juvenile fiction.

  A823.4

  University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable

  and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests.

  The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

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