The Tribe Endangered No. 2 Mrs C

We start sadly

Because it ended badly

Even before we begin

Cassowary was chosen

Second to giant tortoise

To be a face in the tribe

One well known local was Mrs C

Jungle Queen of - where else

- the Cassowary Coast

Queensland, Australia

Local personality for 50 years

She would have been the one

But she was already gone

Killed by a car after so long

Fondly regarded and now missed

Though the Cassowary Festival goes on

So in memory of Mrs C

Her mission ended at Mission Beach

We seek another to take her place

Endangered animal personality No.2

(Insert name here) the Cassowary

At the end suggest her name

Formidable ground bound bird

Most dangerous known

Flight not needed, fully capable to fight

Not many would face her in battle

Better to be friendly with this one

Better still leave her well alone

Don’t threaten her in her home

Brilliantly coloured not needing to hide

Glossy black with blue and purple neck

With red wattles and amber eyes dramatised

Battering her way through the forest on the run

With her horned axe-like helmet, casque

Not to mention her formidable toenails

Otherwise known as dagger-shaped claws

Your won’t want to see how she uses those

Ratite with an appetite for seedy fruit

Eating what falls, to deposit in her rambling

Across her habitat roaming

To propagate and spread the rainforest

For the next ones and the biodiverse

In the hot and Wet Tropics

She and her kin decline with the Forest

As it is cleared and felled

Pushed out to pasture and human homes

She is a bird that lives

In the dappled light and shade

Ancient rainforest dweller

Remnants of Gondwana, a different time

When the continent was lush

And teeming with life

Flightless but not helpless

Don’t you find out

Luckily, fruit eater and nothing else

Heavyweight champion of Australian birds

Emu may be taller but would take flight

On foot rather than try to disprove!

To halt (her name) decline we have to turn it around

More trees in the ground, more range

More rainforest, more Cassowary

More Cassowary, more rainforest

And all the rest that comes with it

That’s where Brett and Mr Miyawaki

Dig in and begin

And the WTMA people use their skills

To plant and preserve her home

Give Mrs C’s replacement a name

Or suggest an existing Cassowary

With personality, to lend her face

And her given name, to awareness

Support the aspiration to delist her

Send her back the right way

Away from endangerment and extinction

To stay where her kind have always been

in the Wet Tropics

Eating seedy fruit....

Postscript

A replacement has been found

He stepped up awkwardly

Taking his name and strange dancing

From a well-known politician

With a story of overcoming adversity

Yet then being seen as a father Cassowary

New generation in tow

It’s the dads who raise the chicks

His story will be forthcoming…

Brett Krause uses the Miyawaki method for rapid reforestation

WTMA - wet Tropics Management Authority