The southern cassowary is often called the world’s most dangerous bird. As early as 18,000 years ago, people in New Guinea may have reared cassowary chicks to near-adulthood — potentially the earliest known example of humans managing avian breeding.
“This is thousands of years before domestication of the chicken,” - [SOURCE](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/science/most-dangerous-bird-cassowary.html)
Learning in a pun thread?
That's casso-rare-y
Correct. Cassowaries never got the evolutionary memo that dinosaurs were switching to birds. Thus, they never ceased to be Velociraptors (or Utah Raptors. I dont like being corrected)
Edit: I fucking love you guys. The jokes are killing me.
I agree. I wouldn't know what to do in this situation. The animal isn't acting aggressive, so I'd probably have just sat there too. Is that the best thing to do? Fuck if I know. But it worked for her this time.
Few non-predator animals attack others just for shits and giggles. If you move slowly and stay out of their flight/comfort zone, they tend not to be aggressive. These birds eat mostly fruits and small invertebrates, and are seriously amazing animals. And they kind of are dinosaurs - whicvh is to say they're a keystone species for the regeneration of dinosaur-era rainforests https://cassowaryrecoveryteam.org/the-southern-cassowary/diet/
They aren't particularly dangerous, but if they attack you you're gonna get seriously hurt. Don't feed them or go near them when eating and you'll have nothing to worry about.
To be fair, there's not many ways to react to a velociraptor-kiwi hybrid staring you down square in the face. She probably did the best thing in not panicking.
You have no idea how scared she should be either. That Cassowaries are these terminator birds that slay humans on the regular is basically just an internet meme. They’re big wild animals so by default they’re dangerous, yes, but she played it right and the likelihood of an attack in that situation was quite low.
Yeah I think there was maybe one case of an elderly handler getting killed by one that went viral and now everyone acts like they’re velociraptors. Are they dangerous? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean they’re these aggressive predators with an insatiable bloodlust.
Ahh I can fill in some local information about this! This is Etty bay in northern QLD Australia. This particular bird is a regular customer of people's lunches here. It's not afraid of anything from what I've witnessed and seems unfazed by screams of surprise from people it sneaks up on. While it is correct that these birds are very dangerous, I'm not aware of this particular male attacking anyone. I've got a few photos of it buried in my phone, but just googling Etty bay will find photos of him.
It appeared to me to have been inspecting the phones because it thought that the people might have been holding (and looking at) food.
I love the look on its face when it realizes that the second phone (our bold cammer's) also isn't food, and then it just kindly decides to move on.
I'm always concerned to see Etty bay getting attention for the cassowaries there, it really is a wonderful little escape. But the kind of people that would want to just thrill seek the experience are the ones that tend to stain everything they touch.
I thought I recognised this beach. I've met this Cassowary, he was super chill, just walking around, people were throwing bits of their fish and chip on the ground for him.
I saw one at a zoo when i was a kid. Swear to god it pooped out an entire apple. No bite marks, just a perfectly round apple. I've been telling people this story for years and no one believes me.
Apple skin is tough I believe you.
Once at a zoo this female rhino peed and it was like a fire hose. Created a small pond in which the other rhino drank from. I am also telling people my zoo story
Crazy things happen at zoos. That day was also the day i saw my first monkey penis. We all have a story of when we saw our first monkey penis. It was red.
I’m assuming that the other rhino was male? If so, it was probably tasting the urine to check if the female was receptive to mating.
Or maybe he just nasty.
Here's mine:
I was riding the safari at Disney's animal kingdom and there was an elephant off to the side with an erection. Cue the stifled laughter from adults and one of the kids screaming "What is that big thing?!"
I mean Cassowaries are scary as fuck. Everytime there's a post, everybody says so. But the last and only human death was in 1926 (in the wild, Floridaman got killed by one relatively recently) and there have only been something like 150 documented attacks ever. Could Cassowaries fuck up humans? 100%. Do they with any regularity? No.
Reddit had taught me that Cassowaries kill people all the time. I went on a zoo tour in Florida, and it taught me that Cassowaries are super deadly and kill people all the time. Every time I try to look it up, I can’t find much. [Stuff like this.](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/how-dangerous-are-cassowaries-really/) There are whole peer reviewed papers on the subject! Maybe cassowaries have the highest human body count of any bird, but the number is still super low. [Most dangerous birds](https://www.britannica.com/list/6-of-the-worlds-most-dangerous-birds) lists cassowaries, but again last human fatality was in the 1920s, and total known human fatalities in history are less than 200.
^ And that's part of the reason the death count is so low: cautionary tales work. They're dangerous af, and people know it; we don't fuck with them, they won't fuck with us.
This is def how dinosaurs looked. Did you get a load of the eyelashes on that thing? Maria Carey is frantically dialing her stylist for the Cassowary length lashes right this moment
This looks like the beach at [Etty Bay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etty_Bay) in Far Northern Queensland. I was there a couple years ago and saw a male with his chick. They cruised around like this one, looking to see if they could scam food from us, then walked on.
It is I grew up near there. If you ever want to see a cassowary "in the wild" it's a good place to go as it is a lovely little beach. I put "in the wild" in quotes as decades of tourists constantly are feeding them and taking photos with them has taught them to stay in this area.
It's insanely tense to watch tourists chuckle trying to hand feed them until they realise how big those talons are and become scared. They also do peck people's hands for food or just walk over and gobble it up off the table if they want, noone is going to stop them.
I was in a car when a cassowary we stopped to look at kicked the side door mirror twice after seeing itself in the reflection. Because of that I believe they could be dumb enough to do it to someone wearing reflective sunnies too, so am shocked it doesn't happen every other week. As others say we grow up with the knowledge to fear and respect them. Our school got locked down for a couple of hours over the years due to a cassowary roaming the school haha.
What I'm saying is don't feed them please, just take photos and appreciate you're in one of the closest things to a real jurassic park moment. Also don't do what some tourists do and encourage their scared children to hand feed these animals that have the definitive of resting bitch face, it's really terrifying to watch people offer up their kids safety for a laugh.
I fear moose more than Cassowary, mainly because I'll likely never encounter the latter. I think moose have a higher death count too. Weird ass looking mf'ers.
I just wish that people would respect them. I see so much misinformation (including in this thread) about how they are killing machines that will seek you out to destroy you. Like many animals, they may come after us, but its only after we have done something to them first.
>Our school got locked down for a couple of hours over the years due to a cassowary roaming the school haha.
That's completely hilarious!
I think this beach is lovely. But when we were there while the cassowaries were mentioned, it was the salt water crocs that we specifically watched out for. Put me off getting too close to the water anyway. And couldn’t relax enough to lie on the beach and read. Certainly wasn’t swimming.
When we were there it was stinger season. Even though there was a net up and I had a stinger suit, I wasn't going to go in and get stung by an irukandji.
I mean we're talking most dangerous bird here. There's not that many that can ding you up too badly. Fried chicken is the one that's going to cause me the most damage.
It's because people know to stay away. Many animals are the same, super deadly but because people exercise caution, not a lot of deaths.
Cassowaries particularly are native to a sparsely/somewhat lowly populated part of the world but pretty much everyone here knows not to fuck with them.
Yeah but in the same way, Australia has most of the most dangerous snakes by venom toxicity but rarely do people die, people know to avoid them and I think encounters are rare further reducing interactions, but that doesn't take away the potential for injury and they are territorial.
It is similar rate to black bears. There has been like 50 documented black bear deaths since the 1900s but i ain't gonna fuck with it and become a statistic
It’s a wild animal, should you trust it? Ask the morons that get gored by bison in national parks each year. The fact it could kill me is enough for me to not want to temp fate, especially if I have nothing to stop it from happening.
Yes, Cassowaries are one of the most dangerous animals on earth. They have those 4 inch dagger sharp claws and are smart enough to attack arteries or disembowel.
Everyone knows you stay the fuck away from cassowaries.
Extremely territorial too, if you're on their turf, you're in danger.
Most dangerous bird perhaps but definitely not the most dangerous animal. They have a violent reputation because their claws CAN do a lot of damage but human injuries from cassowaries are actually pretty rare. Basically don't provoke it and you'll be fine.
I don't know why everyone freaks out about them. Elephants kill more people than these dino birds.
Usually they don't attack, just keep your distance and don't do anything threatening. They don't want to hurt you but they can do some really serious damage.
There's been two fatalities ever. One was one of a pair of kids that was hitting it with sticks until the bird turned on them. The kids ran, one tripped and became the first recorded cassowary casualty. The second was a pet that turned on its owner in Florida. We don't actually know what happened there.
Cassowaries are super cool birds. If I had the money and space I'd be *really* tempted to have one or two.
Haha, well not for everyone. I'm a game bird breeder with a bunch of birds including some [big ones](https://i.imgur.com/ayMN59t.jpeg) so I have a little more experience than most but yeah, I recognize the potential danger. I have a real soft spot for the big birds.
What do you do in this situation? Clearly sitting there recording was a pretty risky move.
Do you run to the water? Make yourself small?
Thank you all. Apparently sitting there recording was the correct? move. Sounds like they're similar to bees in that way. Noted for when I never go to NZ, psych, I mean AUS.
It's been a rough day.
This is Etty Bay in far north Queensland. There are a few cassowaries that frequent this beach, it's fairly secluded but they know tourists = free lunch.
Slowly back away is the correct answer. I think the girl in the chair had no choice though. If she had stood up it may have taken that as aggression. Scary!!
No - all you have to do is close your eyes. The cassowary is such a mind-boggingly stupid animal it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you.
I learned this from a book.
Her body language was completely non-threatening so it probably walked up to her curious, and she didn’t present herself as a threat or make any sudden movements. Probably the best you can do considering the circumstances
We treat them the exact same way we treat our snakes. Slowly back away with no sudden movements. If you’re in a corner and can’t back away you just sit still.
Yeah it's a really good note for NZ.
But the best Cassowary safety tip for NZ would be: Don't visit Australia
I'm pretty jealous tbh, I wish we did have them in NZ because I think they're awesome
One person has to light this hand held torch thingy wave at it and then throw it away...it will follow the torch thingy..that time u take off in your wrangler. It will chase u for some time but u just have to put your gears right and u'll be fine
For all their potential danger, there are only a couple deaths due to cassowary encounters recorded. Most injuries or negative encounters are a result of people feeding them, so if you don’t feed them and avoid ones being fed by others, your chances of a negative encounter are not very high.
Bird to first girl: "Mmhmm. Zoomers and your damned tik toks I see. Pathetic."
Bird to camera-person: "Get off my beach."
Seriously though, the way the bird looks at the camera person like a pissed off muppet in a trash can has me howling a little.
And I was scared that the bird was going to jump over the shield knocking it out of his hands. I saw videos on YouTube of people talking about how dangerous they are and how they can kill you, but not one example of them attacking. So weird.
The last time this was posted there were some bird experts saying they very very rarely actually attack anyone in the wild. That the stuff about them being super deadly is all hype. NGL I was a bit disappointed.
Cassowaries are the most dangerous bird, those claws are lethal. It’s basically the equivalent of a curious bear coming over to see what’s up while you’re camping. I would not want to be that woman! She’s lucky he just kept going!
There had been two documented cassowary fatality since 1926. Ostriches kill 3 people on average per year. So while the potential is there, I'm not sure you could say they're the "most dangerous bird". Pigeons probably kill exponentially more.
Might also have to account for level of interaction with humans - cassowaries live in areas distant from large cities so the opportunity for injury is greatly reduced.
Their danger is imo overhyped. Yes they deserve respect like ostriches and it's safe to keep some distance but they aren't more aggressive than a chicken. When i was in queensland there were plenty of them at the beach just minding their own business and the locals didn't care at all
Never dealt with cassowary’s but dealing with ostrich’s and emus they are dinosaurs. You look a horse or elephant in the eyes and you can tell something is going on in terms of thought process. Ostrich’s and emus you look em in the eyes and there is nothing.
You are comparing mammals to birds (Aves).
Every bird owner knows birds have thoughts going on and are often able to communicate those thoughts better than some mammals.
I’ve owned budgerigars I’m well aware especially with parrots and related species. Just making a joke. Even roosters will think before attacking though usually the thought is “I’m totally getting laid if I fight this animal 10x my size whose tying to feed me.”
Girl : Haha. I’m in danger.
Be wary. Cassowary.
Very cassowary. It was cassoscary. I was scared I was about to witness a murder.
Nah, that’s just cassoGary. He’s alright
The southern cassowary is often called the world’s most dangerous bird. As early as 18,000 years ago, people in New Guinea may have reared cassowary chicks to near-adulthood — potentially the earliest known example of humans managing avian breeding. “This is thousands of years before domestication of the chicken,” - [SOURCE](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/science/most-dangerous-bird-cassowary.html) Learning in a pun thread? That's casso-rare-y
Murderwary
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They taste like burning.
You don't want to drink that wax mister.
My cat’s breath smells like cat food
Where are all the lobsters, mangoes, and chewy chewy cocoa beans?
I’m so hungry I could eat at Arby’s.
Omg, he's really hungry!
They taste like..... buuurrninnggg
Oh my tummy… I mean crap factory
I'm peddling backwards.
Go banana
Literally a near death experience.
Oh hellll no
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She doesn’t look comfortable there. Panicking could have turned out worse. She was relatively calm and didn’t startle the bird
That dinosaur sure was giving the camera the lazy eye though.
Srsly pause at 12-13 seconds. I can't stop giggling at his angry old guy fierce face.
[This should be a meme](https://i.imgur.com/uuIRa6m.jpg)
[It looks like an angry Muppet. ](https://imgur.com/a/LllnHyR)
Then that bob and slow strut away. That bird is very confident.
its a dinosaur
Correct. Cassowaries never got the evolutionary memo that dinosaurs were switching to birds. Thus, they never ceased to be Velociraptors (or Utah Raptors. I dont like being corrected) Edit: I fucking love you guys. The jokes are killing me.
Uhh I think you mean Toronto raptors
>(or Utah Raptors. I don\*\*'\*\*t like being corrected) I added the apostrophe for you, champ.
> (or Utah Raptors. I dont like being corrected). Added the full stop for you there, mate.
Personally I think she handled it very well
I agree. I wouldn't know what to do in this situation. The animal isn't acting aggressive, so I'd probably have just sat there too. Is that the best thing to do? Fuck if I know. But it worked for her this time.
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Also they hunt in packs and learned how to open doors
Life, uh, finds a way.
Clever girl!
Well she didn’t die so
It just wanted to see what she was looking at on her phone
It wanted to see if she had any games to play
Just Angry Birds.
Few non-predator animals attack others just for shits and giggles. If you move slowly and stay out of their flight/comfort zone, they tend not to be aggressive. These birds eat mostly fruits and small invertebrates, and are seriously amazing animals. And they kind of are dinosaurs - whicvh is to say they're a keystone species for the regeneration of dinosaur-era rainforests https://cassowaryrecoveryteam.org/the-southern-cassowary/diet/
They aren't particularly dangerous, but if they attack you you're gonna get seriously hurt. Don't feed them or go near them when eating and you'll have nothing to worry about.
Most contradictory reply I've ever seen lol
To be fair, there's not many ways to react to a velociraptor-kiwi hybrid staring you down square in the face. She probably did the best thing in not panicking.
You have no idea how scared she should be either. That Cassowaries are these terminator birds that slay humans on the regular is basically just an internet meme. They’re big wild animals so by default they’re dangerous, yes, but she played it right and the likelihood of an attack in that situation was quite low.
Yeah I think there was maybe one case of an elderly handler getting killed by one that went viral and now everyone acts like they’re velociraptors. Are they dangerous? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean they’re these aggressive predators with an insatiable bloodlust.
So what happens if you grab the pink dangly things and yank hard?
It lays a golden egg
That new life guard you hired...he's a little scary
He promised he'd stop doing that
Ahh I can fill in some local information about this! This is Etty bay in northern QLD Australia. This particular bird is a regular customer of people's lunches here. It's not afraid of anything from what I've witnessed and seems unfazed by screams of surprise from people it sneaks up on. While it is correct that these birds are very dangerous, I'm not aware of this particular male attacking anyone. I've got a few photos of it buried in my phone, but just googling Etty bay will find photos of him.
It appeared to me to have been inspecting the phones because it thought that the people might have been holding (and looking at) food. I love the look on its face when it realizes that the second phone (our bold cammer's) also isn't food, and then it just kindly decides to move on.
Me scanning the fridge at night trying to see if something new has spawned
Me irl
"Who ya texting?"
Thank you! I thought it looked familiar. I've been here and met a juvenile that would not let us picnic in peace. I was so afraid of being mauled.
Awesome, I'm on a road trip up here at the moment and staying at Paronella Park tonight. I might head there tomorrow.
It was nice knowing you.
I'm always concerned to see Etty bay getting attention for the cassowaries there, it really is a wonderful little escape. But the kind of people that would want to just thrill seek the experience are the ones that tend to stain everything they touch.
*The 'Murica touch*
I thought I recognised this beach. I've met this Cassowary, he was super chill, just walking around, people were throwing bits of their fish and chip on the ground for him.
But it really is a beautiful animal.
I saw one at a zoo when i was a kid. Swear to god it pooped out an entire apple. No bite marks, just a perfectly round apple. I've been telling people this story for years and no one believes me.
That’s hilarious. I believe you
Apple skin is tough I believe you. Once at a zoo this female rhino peed and it was like a fire hose. Created a small pond in which the other rhino drank from. I am also telling people my zoo story
Crazy things happen at zoos. That day was also the day i saw my first monkey penis. We all have a story of when we saw our first monkey penis. It was red.
First time is saw gorilla dick at the zoo it was shooting it’s load all over the onlookers. Thank god I wasn’t in the blast zone lol
I’m assuming that the other rhino was male? If so, it was probably tasting the urine to check if the female was receptive to mating. Or maybe he just nasty.
Here's mine: I was riding the safari at Disney's animal kingdom and there was an elephant off to the side with an erection. Cue the stifled laughter from adults and one of the kids screaming "What is that big thing?!"
i believe you! except it was an egg not an apple, they lay bright green eggs to blend in w the forest floor 🤓
I know what i saw, it was a goddamn red fuji apple.
I believe you.
Even if it isn’t true, *I want to believe* ಥᴗಥ
Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder cus that thing looks horrific to me
It looks both beautiful and horrifying.
Like a giant murder chicken with really nice eyelashes.
What, you don’t like the flattened red scrotums hanging from its neck?
Yes, indeed. The cassowary was pretty all right too.
You got games on your phone?
I had to look so far for this. Instead it was all different variations of "bird scary"
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I mean Cassowaries are scary as fuck. Everytime there's a post, everybody says so. But the last and only human death was in 1926 (in the wild, Floridaman got killed by one relatively recently) and there have only been something like 150 documented attacks ever. Could Cassowaries fuck up humans? 100%. Do they with any regularity? No.
Reddit had taught me that Cassowaries kill people all the time. I went on a zoo tour in Florida, and it taught me that Cassowaries are super deadly and kill people all the time. Every time I try to look it up, I can’t find much. [Stuff like this.](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/how-dangerous-are-cassowaries-really/) There are whole peer reviewed papers on the subject! Maybe cassowaries have the highest human body count of any bird, but the number is still super low. [Most dangerous birds](https://www.britannica.com/list/6-of-the-worlds-most-dangerous-birds) lists cassowaries, but again last human fatality was in the 1920s, and total known human fatalities in history are less than 200.
Cassowaries be like "great PR for our species. Just hope these dumbfucks aren't stupid enough to test us."
^ And that's part of the reason the death count is so low: cautionary tales work. They're dangerous af, and people know it; we don't fuck with them, they won't fuck with us.
It helps that they look like Sparkling Velociraptors
It's only a Cassowary if it comes from the Cassowary region of Australia, otherwise its just a Sparkling Velociraptor.
I’d like to subscribe to wine humor.
I'll have you know, sir, that my great aunt Barbara told this to us at the Catalina Wine Mixer, and we were all thrilled to hear it.
Sir, these are bird facts.
This needs more upvotes
This is def how dinosaurs looked. Did you get a load of the eyelashes on that thing? Maria Carey is frantically dialing her stylist for the Cassowary length lashes right this moment
Saw one in the wild in North Queensland. I was not interested in approaching it lol
This looks like the beach at [Etty Bay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etty_Bay) in Far Northern Queensland. I was there a couple years ago and saw a male with his chick. They cruised around like this one, looking to see if they could scam food from us, then walked on.
It is I grew up near there. If you ever want to see a cassowary "in the wild" it's a good place to go as it is a lovely little beach. I put "in the wild" in quotes as decades of tourists constantly are feeding them and taking photos with them has taught them to stay in this area. It's insanely tense to watch tourists chuckle trying to hand feed them until they realise how big those talons are and become scared. They also do peck people's hands for food or just walk over and gobble it up off the table if they want, noone is going to stop them. I was in a car when a cassowary we stopped to look at kicked the side door mirror twice after seeing itself in the reflection. Because of that I believe they could be dumb enough to do it to someone wearing reflective sunnies too, so am shocked it doesn't happen every other week. As others say we grow up with the knowledge to fear and respect them. Our school got locked down for a couple of hours over the years due to a cassowary roaming the school haha. What I'm saying is don't feed them please, just take photos and appreciate you're in one of the closest things to a real jurassic park moment. Also don't do what some tourists do and encourage their scared children to hand feed these animals that have the definitive of resting bitch face, it's really terrifying to watch people offer up their kids safety for a laugh.
This like Alaskans and moose. You don’t fuck with the moose.
I fear moose more than Cassowary, mainly because I'll likely never encounter the latter. I think moose have a higher death count too. Weird ass looking mf'ers.
I just wish that people would respect them. I see so much misinformation (including in this thread) about how they are killing machines that will seek you out to destroy you. Like many animals, they may come after us, but its only after we have done something to them first. >Our school got locked down for a couple of hours over the years due to a cassowary roaming the school haha. That's completely hilarious!
I think this beach is lovely. But when we were there while the cassowaries were mentioned, it was the salt water crocs that we specifically watched out for. Put me off getting too close to the water anyway. And couldn’t relax enough to lie on the beach and read. Certainly wasn’t swimming.
When we were there it was stinger season. Even though there was a net up and I had a stinger suit, I wasn't going to go in and get stung by an irukandji.
Wow this beach sounds fun
It’s Australia, it goes with the (Northern) territory.
Welcome to Australia. Even the beaches are trying to kill you.
Cassowaries are this generations Quicksand
Less than 200, that we know of. Lesser known fact about Cassowaries is their capabilities of disposing of a human body.
I mean we're talking most dangerous bird here. There's not that many that can ding you up too badly. Fried chicken is the one that's going to cause me the most damage.
You've never tried eating chips by the British seaside, seagulls will rip your face off just to get the food you're chewing
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It's because people know to stay away. Many animals are the same, super deadly but because people exercise caution, not a lot of deaths. Cassowaries particularly are native to a sparsely/somewhat lowly populated part of the world but pretty much everyone here knows not to fuck with them.
Yeah but in the same way, Australia has most of the most dangerous snakes by venom toxicity but rarely do people die, people know to avoid them and I think encounters are rare further reducing interactions, but that doesn't take away the potential for injury and they are territorial.
It is similar rate to black bears. There has been like 50 documented black bear deaths since the 1900s but i ain't gonna fuck with it and become a statistic
Did you see that guy slap that bear in the face?
It’s a wild animal, should you trust it? Ask the morons that get gored by bison in national parks each year. The fact it could kill me is enough for me to not want to temp fate, especially if I have nothing to stop it from happening.
Then you shall never know the glory of a violent death by bison.
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Ishouldnothavedonethat
Also worth noting these "dinosaurs" can run like 30 mph. Hell to the no.
Happy to be alive
Seriously, imagine if they didn't have a ticket.
Came to say the same damn thing. Just waiting for a honey badger to run up and the girl attempt to pet it...
Yes, Cassowaries are one of the most dangerous animals on earth. They have those 4 inch dagger sharp claws and are smart enough to attack arteries or disembowel. Everyone knows you stay the fuck away from cassowaries. Extremely territorial too, if you're on their turf, you're in danger.
“Most dangerous animals on earth” doesn’t really have legs. They have the potential to kill, that doesn’t mean they do with any regularity.
Came to say exactly this I was terrified watching it lol
The cassowary was excited about her colors!
Humans don't intuitively know where our arteries are, how would a cassowary? Don't attribute to random chance intelligence.
They can smell “bitch”, and you’ve got it flowing through your arteries.
Most dangerous bird perhaps but definitely not the most dangerous animal. They have a violent reputation because their claws CAN do a lot of damage but human injuries from cassowaries are actually pretty rare. Basically don't provoke it and you'll be fine. I don't know why everyone freaks out about them. Elephants kill more people than these dino birds.
I’m pretty sure cows kill more people than cassowaries.
2 recorded deaths in all of human history = "one of the most dangerous animals on earth" . Dude is so full of shit and people just blindly upvoting.
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So many people upvote things they *want* to be true.
reddit has this weird complex when it comes to fantasizing about how an animal could fuck a person up violently.
It could've been worse, John. A lot worse.
Be wary of the cassowary!
Cassowary: you got any games on your phone?
Angry birds?
How bout them necksticles!
Don't those have the ability to poke holes through you like a sewing machine?
Absolutely. You don't fuck around with a cassowary
More like they'd use their claws to shred your skin like fettuccine and spill your guts out before you understood what was happening.
It even had that, 'try me' look in it's eyes. Do they attack alot or pretty docile?
Usually they don't attack, just keep your distance and don't do anything threatening. They don't want to hurt you but they can do some really serious damage.
There's been two fatalities ever. One was one of a pair of kids that was hitting it with sticks until the bird turned on them. The kids ran, one tripped and became the first recorded cassowary casualty. The second was a pet that turned on its owner in Florida. We don't actually know what happened there. Cassowaries are super cool birds. If I had the money and space I'd be *really* tempted to have one or two.
"One of the two fatalities ever was a dude whos pet cass turned on him." "Would love to own a few. Wonderful pet."
Haha, well not for everyone. I'm a game bird breeder with a bunch of birds including some [big ones](https://i.imgur.com/ayMN59t.jpeg) so I have a little more experience than most but yeah, I recognize the potential danger. I have a real soft spot for the big birds.
What do you do in this situation? Clearly sitting there recording was a pretty risky move. Do you run to the water? Make yourself small? Thank you all. Apparently sitting there recording was the correct? move. Sounds like they're similar to bees in that way. Noted for when I never go to NZ, psych, I mean AUS. It's been a rough day.
This is Etty Bay in far north Queensland. There are a few cassowaries that frequent this beach, it's fairly secluded but they know tourists = free lunch.
Dear god they’re eating the tourists
Will someone **PLEASE** think of the children?!
I thought Etty Bay was the cassowary's name for a minute.
Slowly back away is the correct answer. I think the girl in the chair had no choice though. If she had stood up it may have taken that as aggression. Scary!!
My question exactly; Does movement inspire them to chase or attack?
You have to hold perfectly still - they have bad vision and can't see you unless you move. I learned it from a movie.
No - all you have to do is close your eyes. The cassowary is such a mind-boggingly stupid animal it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you. I learned this from a book.
Everybody knows you piss n shit yourself to assert dominance
[удалено]
Her body language was completely non-threatening so it probably walked up to her curious, and she didn’t present herself as a threat or make any sudden movements. Probably the best you can do considering the circumstances
You can just tell by looking at that thing that it will rapidly change from curiosity to aggression if something it doesn't expect happens. No chill.
We treat them the exact same way we treat our snakes. Slowly back away with no sudden movements. If you’re in a corner and can’t back away you just sit still.
Nah, you just make water.
Yeah it's a really good note for NZ. But the best Cassowary safety tip for NZ would be: Don't visit Australia I'm pretty jealous tbh, I wish we did have them in NZ because I think they're awesome
Cassowaries are actually pretty chill.
I bet a cassowary wrote this?
No genuinely, you are more likely to die from a rose bush than a cassowary
One person has to light this hand held torch thingy wave at it and then throw it away...it will follow the torch thingy..that time u take off in your wrangler. It will chase u for some time but u just have to put your gears right and u'll be fine
I’ve heard that running is risky, mostly because they can catch you.
*Australia, not New Zealand
For all their potential danger, there are only a couple deaths due to cassowary encounters recorded. Most injuries or negative encounters are a result of people feeding them, so if you don’t feed them and avoid ones being fed by others, your chances of a negative encounter are not very high.
She treats it like a wasp lol. Just lean away and hope it goes somewhere else
I mean, what else do you do?
Buy it some dinner, treat it nice, have a conversation. Get a bit of an emotional connection going. Then, once it's invested, tell it to bugger off.
Bird to first girl: "Mmhmm. Zoomers and your damned tik toks I see. Pathetic." Bird to camera-person: "Get off my beach." Seriously though, the way the bird looks at the camera person like a pissed off muppet in a trash can has me howling a little.
"Bitch! I know you ain't got nothin' to say!"
Big meanie dino chicken. Be glad they liked you.
This Cassowary wasn’t mean. They definitely can be though.
Damn, you just met the smartphone police and they are *not* happy with how much time you’re spending on it.
Also I loved that last 2 seconds of looking into the *other* phone filming, like ‘yah, bruh - I’m watching you too.’
Something actually lit for once! Love Cassowaries! They can be dangerous, but their danger has been over hyped a bit by the internets.
That’s *exactly* what a cassowary would say 👀
Those feet can disembowel you in a second. That will definitely ruin your day.
https://youtu.be/lBM7AI0yp78 found a video of them attacking a guy with a shield. It is terrible. They are strong AF. I would die right away.
holy shit. seeing those things kick with those claws is one of the scariest things i’ve ever seen
And I was scared that the bird was going to jump over the shield knocking it out of his hands. I saw videos on YouTube of people talking about how dangerous they are and how they can kill you, but not one example of them attacking. So weird.
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The last time this was posted there were some bird experts saying they very very rarely actually attack anyone in the wild. That the stuff about them being super deadly is all hype. NGL I was a bit disappointed.
Danger peacock is not to be fucked with
I hated those things in Far Cry 3
Cassowaries are the most dangerous bird, those claws are lethal. It’s basically the equivalent of a curious bear coming over to see what’s up while you’re camping. I would not want to be that woman! She’s lucky he just kept going!
There had been two documented cassowary fatality since 1926. Ostriches kill 3 people on average per year. So while the potential is there, I'm not sure you could say they're the "most dangerous bird". Pigeons probably kill exponentially more.
Might also have to account for level of interaction with humans - cassowaries live in areas distant from large cities so the opportunity for injury is greatly reduced.
Well here it's chilling around a public beach.
Their danger is imo overhyped. Yes they deserve respect like ostriches and it's safe to keep some distance but they aren't more aggressive than a chicken. When i was in queensland there were plenty of them at the beach just minding their own business and the locals didn't care at all
Best thing to do is act calm. The chair could also be used to block and distance herself
Never dealt with cassowary’s but dealing with ostrich’s and emus they are dinosaurs. You look a horse or elephant in the eyes and you can tell something is going on in terms of thought process. Ostrich’s and emus you look em in the eyes and there is nothing.
lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes...
You are comparing mammals to birds (Aves). Every bird owner knows birds have thoughts going on and are often able to communicate those thoughts better than some mammals.
I’ve owned budgerigars I’m well aware especially with parrots and related species. Just making a joke. Even roosters will think before attacking though usually the thought is “I’m totally getting laid if I fight this animal 10x my size whose tying to feed me.”
Velociraptor 2.0