Cassowary Workshop

10th Aug 2011

A Cassowary Husbandry Workshop was arranged recently by James Biggs (Bird Department Supervisor) of Cairns Tropical Zoo and hosted by Dreamworld on the Gold Coast. The purpose of the workshop was to address some of the current issues facing the captive breeding program for the endangered Southern Cassowary and to further develop the Cassowary Husbandry Manual (last published in 1997 – Liz Romer, Ed.). The primary aim of the manual was to update and improve captive cassowary husbandry and management across the board.

Some of the issues discussed at the workshop included general husbandry, housing, handling, health, reproduction, behaviour, nutrition, artificial incubation and rearing, the use of cassowaries as a conservation tool and the status of wild and captive population genetics. A number of speculations about captive cassowary physiology and behaviour were resolved at the workshop and a few trends identified from studbook data that may assist in reinvigorating the breeding program.