Cassowaries

patrick said:
the southern cassowary is the biggest of the cassowaries and i think you'd be hard pressed to argue that it is any less attractive than the other two species. i think the only reason you find it "less interesting" is because it is more common that the other two. i'm not having a dig - i agree establishing all species in captivity should be a priority - but i think when it comes to comparing the three, its pretty unfair to rate them - all three are equally splendid animals.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Southern Cassowary is surely just as attractive as the two other species, no doubt about that.

And you are absolutely right that I found it less interesting as it is the most common species in captivity, it has been breed very succesfully in many insitutions and is a common species in zoo collections worldwide. The Southern Cassowary is also relatively well studied in the wild.

But very little, almost nothing is known about either Dwarf or Northern Cassowary, to be honest I know of no recent studies undertaken on Northern Cassowary in recent years, in the wild or captivity. Very little is also known about captivity husbandary, and aim sure we would gain much knowledge if anyone cared to bring back these species into captivity.
 
Taronga many years ago had all three forms of cassowary.

I have an old guidebook with a photo of a pair of Bennett's with three eggs and a caption stating that "a number of these birds have been bred." A later guidebook shows a group of eight Bennett's fossicking in leaf litter in a shady enclosure.There are none in Australia now.

There was also a solitary One-wattled on display which disappeared in the early 1960s (and which was presumably the last of its species in Australia.) This was a very vicious bird and was reputed to have disemboweled a keeper. It was always locked off in a holding yard before anyone could enter its enclosure.

Nowadays of course only Southerns are available to Aussie zoos.
 
Do you have Sky TV? Zoo Story (episode 4) today on Sky Real Lives 2 were talking about the cassowaries at Paignton Zoo and that the male sits on the eggs (there were three - they looked liked avocados!) but then they have to incubate them and hand rear them as he can be a bit aggressive when they hatch. Then they use chickens to show the young how to feed. :D I'll try and take some pics from it for you (I sky+d it)but I'm not expecting much usually you get that bad rolling image effect.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top