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COMMUNITY UPDATE · SOUTHERN CASSOWARY RESEARCH PROJECT

What three years of tracking Paluma’s cassowaries has taught us

Cassowaries have been moving through these mist-wrapped forests for over 2 million years – rainforest gardeners whose big appetites and long memories for the fleshy fruits of rainforest trees keep these ancient forests growing. Despite that deep history, the southern cassowary is now endangered, and the birds that call the Paluma Range home hold a particular distinction: they make up the southernmost cassowary population anywhere in the world, surviving right on the margin of suitable habitat.

Until recently no-one had specifically studied the Paluma Range population. The 2014 Wet Tropics Cassowary Census, which used faecal DNA sampling across the regio, found no scats at all here in Paluma and extrapolated a population of 16 adult birds.

FROM THE 2014 WET TROPICS CASSOWARY CENSUS “While there was an overall decrease in the rate of sign encountered throughout the two Wet Tropics population census conducted by Crome & Moore 1988 and Westcott et al. 2014, this decrease was most noticeable in the southern extent of their range in the Herbert catchment and Paluma range.” — Westcott et al. 2014, National Environmental Research Program. Reef and Rainforest Research Centre

WALKING TOGETHER WITH NYWAIGI

This work was grounded in Nywaigi Country. In June 2023, before surveying began, we sought and received endorsement from the Nywaigi Traditional Owner group. Grant funding enabled Nywaigi participation in citizen science surveys and events. A fitting reminder that Traditional Owners have a long and ongoing cultural responsibility to care for cassowaries and their habitat. 

A COMMUNITY EFFORT

Since 2023, with BirdLife Townsville as our project auspice, we’ve been working to close that knowledge gap and we couldn’t have done it without this community. Two citizen science events, in August 2023 and November 2025, brought locals and visitors out onto Paluma’s well-maintained network of tracks around the village and dam to search for signs together. Historical sightings were also pieced together, collating decades of sightings from Paluma’s Turkey Talk newsletter and the village sightings log so carefully kept by Bill and Ross Pyne.

Working with the community to learn all we can about the Paluma Range Cassowary population

Local botanical experts have helped us identify fallen fruits, while QPWS rangers, Townsville City Council staff and regular Paluma Dam bushwalkers have generously shared their own sightings and knowledge. ABC Radio and local media coverage helped spread the word, and NQ Dry Tropics NRM built the QR-code reporting platform designed for the public to record a sighting on the spot.

Community cassowary surveys – August  2023

WHAT THE CAMERAS ARE TELLING US

Across three years of camera trapping and field surveys we’ve identified at least 12 individual birds, detected at 10 of our 51 camera trap locations. Detections cluster strongly around the north and north-eastern sections of the range, along and between the Bambaroo and Jourama Tracks – where over ½ of these individuals, and the same individuals were repeatedly photographed over time.

Father with two camouflaged stripey chicks –  Jourama Track, Nov 2023        Two young sub-adults stepping out at Shay’s clearing Dec, 2023

Despite two years of camera trapping through the southern section of the range including Patterson’s Gorge, southern Bluewater  and along the PRB Track south of Mt Halifax, we recorded no detections there at all –  echoing the pattern first flagged in the 2014 census and raising real questions about whether this population has contracted over recent decades.

Two adults and a sub-adult sharing a fruit glut –  Bambaroo Track, Autumn 2024

We’re now seeing clear evidence that cassowaries move down into lowland habitats during the mid-to-late dry season – timed closely with the heavy fruiting of the native olive, Chionanthus ramiflorus, which turns up in their dung. This lowland movement also coincides with the fruiting of mangoes, and we have confirmed records of cassowaries feeding on both feral and orchard mangoes around Rollingstone and Crystal Creek. Beyond the National Park boundary, Birds have been recorded on freehold land along, Leichhardt, Rollingstone, Hencamp, Ollera, Crystal and Waterview Creeks and on the Bambaroo lowlands. In October 2023 a member of the public recorded the first confirmed crossing of the highway by a cassowary at Rollingstone Creek, and historical accounts from landholders and rangers describe birds using coastal vine scrub near the mouths of both Crystal Creek and Hencamp Creek suggesting these littoral rainforests were once part of the population’s regular range.

Cassowaries using lowland habitats at Hencamp creek (2011 and 2024) and Bambaroo lowlands (2025)

Lowland and littoral rainforests produce large, high-reward fruits – cluster figs, Burdekin plums and native mangosteen among them – at different times of year to the uplands. Before lowland clearing and highway development fragmented the landscape, cassowaries likely moved freely between upland, lowland and littoral rainforest, tracking seasonally staggered fruit supplies. Our findings suggest the lowlands still provide critical seasonal habitat and food during the dry season, but that native vegetation clearing and restricted access may limit population growth of Paluma Range cassowaries. 

KEY THREATS

Historically, rainforest logging (until 1988) and the damming of the fertile Paluma valley floor reshaped this landscape. Today’s birds face additional pressures: feral pigs competing for scarce fruit and likely preying on eggs and chicks; dingo predation, particularly of sub-adults and chicks; cattle browsing rainforest saplings, notably in Patterson’s Gorge; invasive guinea and gamba grasses fuelling hotter, more damaging fires along habitat margins; Siam weed smothering rainforest understorey; and the potential of domestic dogs attacks and vehicle strikes on both lowland and upland properties. Together, these compound the deeper problem of a fragmented landscape that increasingly isolates this southernmost population.

RESTORING MISSING LINKS

This is exactly why NQ Dry Tropics NRM’s new project to protect and restore lowland tropical and littoral rainforest, running through to 2028, matters so much. It’s working directly with landholders to restore vegetation along their creeks — bringing real, practical benefits like erosion control, future reduction of flood peaks and help with feral pig control, alongside restoring the fruit resources these cassowaries depend on. The citizen science program is still active and information about the cryptic Paluma cassowaries is invaluable to better understand their movement and habitat use.  Please continue logging your cassowary sightings and sign (poop & prints) here https://arcg.is/1vjLaq  ‘open the web app’.

Thank you, Paluma — for your tracks, your notebooks, your custodianship and love of this forest. This story is as much yours as it is ours.

Wren. R. McLean  ·  Southern Cassowary Research Project  ·   auspice by BirdLife Townsville