Friday, 13 January 2012

A Sad Tale


This is Mr Cassowary last year with one of his chicks. We recently heard that a visitor up the street witnessed a stray dog kill two of his three nearly full grown chicks. The dog had been sighted repeatedly out of its pen. When the owner was informed, he relocated the dog.

This is going to be the fate of these wonderful birds unless all dog owners become more responsible. Between the dangers posed by cars and the threat of stray or feral dogs, the poor cassowaries will be lucky to survive in the wild.
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5 comments:

  1. Russell Constable13 January 2012 at 11:37

    A sad and unfortunately all too common problem in our part of the world. At Ella Bay a young adult male cassowary was recently mauled so badly by dogs that it had to be put down. Thank you for letting us know.

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  2. liz gallie13 January 2012 at 12:14

    Very sad,
    The state have bought in stricter dog laws but they are only as good as local enforcement and need to go a long way to catch up with the backyard breeding of hunting dogs which is rife in the Wet Tropics. Unfortunately we live in a rural oriented environment where many landowners do not wish their lifestyles to be regulated. The Cassowary Coast mayor was the first to sign a petition against the registration of rural dogs.

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  3. Snail13 January 2012 at 19:05

    That's awful news.

    Was the dog relocated to keep it away from cassowaries or to avoid penalties? (I guess it's difficult to know.)

    We've got the same problem with dogs and tree roos. Council is supposed to be cracking down on unregistered and stray dogs and cats, but I'll believe it when I see it. And it's often not the unregistered and/or strays that do the damage.

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  4. Patricia K. Lichen14 January 2012 at 15:57

    Oh, such sad news! I remember the post about them.

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  5. Nana Cynthia15 January 2012 at 01:51

    I am happy to learn about my surrounding environment, but this is becoming so frequent! I am learning more that a terrible lot of people, DO NOT see the threat to cassowaries as real! their blindness astounds me. My understanding is that the council dog catchers are kept VERY busy chasing stray dogs, let alone the home bred hunting dogs the (red necks) have in these parts. The Cassowary's future looks grim :(
    thank you sharing.

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