tBlog

Despite their popularity, the emu is not the only enormous flightless bird to call Australia home.  The Cassowary is dangerous, more exotic, and has been around since the age of the dinosaurs (and so is by default a much more fantastic animal than the Emu, which you can feed kangaroo pellets to at the petting zoo).  The cassowary was also a highlight of our trip to far North Queensland.

We never got to see one in the wild, but have plenty of cassowary photos to share.  Best put by my sister-in-law…

SARA: Oh and don’t forget the cassowary poop too–it’s our only evidence that they actually exist.

Enough said about our wild cassowary sightings.

I hadn’t realised how popular the cassowary was with FNQers until we really started touring around.  As it turns out, the big black bird with the crazy blue head is the icon of the Aussie tropics, and our little group had their own feelings about it.  Before we left the rain forest, we had spent more time searching for cassowaries in the wild than almost any other activity, since, according to the road signs we spotted frequently, they are roaming all over the area.  Since they weren’t popping out of the bushes around every turn as we had hoped, we started to come up with our own ideas about what they’re actually like…

…did you know that they’re actually a highly advanced species that houses mounted lasers in the crests on their heads?  The locals will tell you they’re dangerous, but never about the lasers.

As I was chatting up some of the locals (one of which was bleeding from a head wound), it was revealed that the local male cassowary was ejected from the area for picking on humans who came to frolic along the ocean side.  What he didn’t care to elaborate on is that the feisty birds will lock you in their hypnotic stare and you hardly have a chance to get away before they unleash their deadly raptor talons on you, slicing out your intestines and lasering the shit out of you.  My guess is that the head-wound man eats this certain cassowary’s leftovers twice a week.

We also decided that Samuel L. Jackson’s newest blockbuster should play off his prior successes, and be titled “Cassowaries on a Plane.”  If you have a good think about it and consider the lasers, they’re way scarier than snakes.

During our nocturnal rain forest tour, the guide advised us that earlier that day, his tour group had happened upon the local cassowary couple mating.  We were not to be so lucky in the middle of the night.  We did, however, discover that it’s a delightfully corny and enjoyable in-car passtime to randomly shout out “CASSOWARY!!” and point at absolutely nothing besides sugar cane at the side of the road.  Not funny in text?  Trust me, you should have been there.

Enough stories for now…the family and I can rehash them when we’re together again…

that is, unless the cassowaries rampage down from the North and gun me down.