Many thousands of people over the years have seen the Cassowaries at Cassowary
House at Kuranda, one of the best places to see them. Sadly, all is far from
well locally as we have now lost two big female birds in the past 18 months,
both ostensibly from peritonitis:
Last week Sept 14 our beautiful big adult female Cassowary Missy was found dead
in a neighbour's garden, some guests there reported a sleeping Cassowary in the
forest, and on checking our friends found her dead, having died around Sept 14.
Missy was in the prime of life and should have been with us for years yet, she
was also such a sweet tempered bird and so good with people without being tame,
it is like losing one of the family as we'd known her for 15 years. Our Kuranda
vet did an autopsy and apparently it was caused by peritonitis, a chronic
inflammation of the gut, but why?
This is the second adult female to die of this in the past 18 months here and
we do not know what is the cause, it is very worrying, we are wondering if
someone is poisoning rats or something and the birds are taking the carrion as
they do. Missy had been spending long periods each day earlier this month
sitting quietly under our big Waterberry tree, she looked in good health and
was eating normally with normal scats. Our property is a long-established haven
for them and they know they are safe here, away from dogs, cars and logging
trucks.
All very distressing, we still have the male with one 6 week old chick coming
daily, but just hope nothing untoward happens to them
Phil Gregory.
Website 1: Http://www.sicklebillsafaris.com
Website 2: Http://www.cassowary-house.com.au
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