With nicknames like “ living dinosaur ” and “ the world ’s most grave wench , ” you ’d be correct to don it ’s a dangerous game to keep a cassowary as a pet .
Marvin Hajos , a 75 - yr - old farm proprietor , was killed by his pet cassowary near Alachua in northern Florida on Friday , April 12 , local CNN affiliateWCJBreports .
exigency service receive an unusual earphone call from a human say an alien bird had attack somebody on the property . The man was reportedly still awake when first answerer arrived on the scene , but he drop dead on the way to the hospital as a result of his harm .
" It looks like it was inadvertent . My intellect is that the gentleman was in the locality of the fowl and at some peak fell . When he fell , he was attacked , " Jeff Taylor , deputy sheriff boss of Alachua County Fire Rescue , toldThe Gainesville Sun .
Cassowariesare heavy flightless birds that can grow over 1.8 meters ( ~6 feet ) tall and consider over 45 kg ( 99 dog pound ) . Although they search like something straight out of the Jurassic period , the specie are native to Papua New Guinea and a small slither of Queensland in northern Australia . They are chiefly vegetarian , mainly hold out off a dieting of yield , but they ’re also have it away to corrode fungi , snails , insects , Gaul , fowl , fish , and scavenged meat .
Although the creatures only be given to assail when they feel peril , they are still certainly not to be messed with . They attack by saddle at a debauched speed and kick with their passing strong legs that are slant with a farseeing claw on each foot , which can grow as long as 10 centimetre ( 4 inches ) .
A cogitation from 1999documented over 150 attacks on humanity by cassowaries in Queensland . Most victims were charged or kicked , although some were pecked , jumped on , and forefront - butted . In almost 75 percent of the incident , the cassowary “ appeared to be ask or soliciting solid food from humans . ”
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission classes cassowaries asClass II wildlife , meaning they are considered dangerous but you’re able to in camera own them if you have a license , the right type of envelopment , and “ hearty experience ” .
While death from a cassowary attack areextremelyrare , it ’s not totally unheard of . Smithsonian Magazinepreviously report that the last someone known to have been kill by a cassowary was an Australian teen back in 1926 . Phillip McLean , 16 , was reportedly running from a wild cassowary at a ranch in Queensland when he fell over and received a slash to his neck by the bird ’s clawed foot . He died of his injury shortly after .
