@zooboy28 I actually visited Phillip Island Wildlife Park in May of 2007 and I cannot recall Southern Cassowarries being at the zoo. Would you know when the facility obtained the species? Did they have them back in 2007?
@snowleopard I don't know when they first started keeping them, but it appeared to be well before my first visit in 2013. They have a good number, at least five I think, so I suspect there would have been some there in 2007. I'm not sure where they were sourced from, but would be interested to know.
@snowleopard Same choice of barriers are often used for their closest parent that is equally intimidating and powerful (emus), and also sometimes for ostriches that can be worst when pecking.
a large group of emus are kept in a walk thru paddock here, I had no problems with them and was able to pat several of them, however I kept my hands out of the cassowary enclosures. There was at least 5 enclosures for cassowary with 7 individuals. I found them to be a highlight of my visit
Usually cassowaries are not aggresive at all if they're hand-raised from chicks. Papuans keep them in their homes for eat them when full grown, just as if they were domestic chickens. While maybe they're more aggresive than emus by nature (cassowaries are solitary while emus are sociable), there is much myth and social alarmism sensation around their aggresivity, like in sharks or wolves. Tons of books, websites or even zoo displays talk about "the bird that kill persons with the claw of the inner toes", but very few of them said that it was just ONE cassowary recorded to kill persons and these persons were two kids that were killing the cassowary previously by struggling it, so the bird just went self-defensive for its own life.
Anyway, even counting if they're aggresive birds, I see no problem in a wall that don't let the birds to kick people, just peck (and seems that they need to jump a bit to peck!)
