Cassowaries as ornamental birds

[Finchbreeder]

My daughter is an Environmental Scientist in Queensland - (read = 60/70% of the time traipsing round the bush way way away from medical assistance counting birds and plants etc) Her team does occasionally work on Cassowary territory.
Her 1st instruction to the team in these circumstances? Pray that we don't see any Cassowaries, followed by what is required for the job - then repeat instruction 1.
They generally avoid people - but no where near as willingly as people avoid them.

 

[briefvisit]

'They generally avoid people - but no where near as willingly as people avoid them.'

Hey, Finchbreeder! My knowledge of cassowaries is next to nil -- mostly from reading here on BYC.

What you are saying makes sense. There's the fact that any critter on a pasture (or in a resource-rich spot in the jungle) has invested some calories to get there, so they don't necessarily want to run away. Otherwise -- and I've noted this repeatedly in discussions about how captive emus do/do not get along -- space is a great asset. You step into the bush. You trot a hundred yards. You're on the next pasture.

We'd luuurv to know anything about the relationship between the notion expressed above and the good ol' fashioned orneriness that cassowaries apparently exhibit.

At Le Op Shop, I got a season of Sons of Anarchy DVDs. I suppose ordinary people are enthused with the fantasy of bad-boy life. I found it more interesting for the way in which psychopathy is central to the club's lifestyle. Conflict is always the first reaction.

But a normally pugnacious emu, like Eric the Emu, will submit in a dispute if he has a clutch with him. We have good data on this. It's a thing. (They all plop down on their bellies!)

So somewhere 'out there' is an equation by which we might know how emoooz and cassowaries balance pugnacious defence of their territory with wise withdrawal from potentially-injurious encounters.

SE