Northern Cassowary

As with other cassowaries, it is a shy and solitary bird. Their diet consists mainly of berries, fruits and small animals, such as mice, rats, frogs, snakes, lizards, smaller birds and a variety of small insects and snails. They will eat dead animals when they find them. The young have been observed to eat the feces of the males raising them and clutch mates. Adults will eat their own feces as it often contains undigested fruits. They make grunting and hissing sounds, like other cassowaries. In the breeding season, the polygamous female lays three to five green eggs on a well camouflaged nest prepared by the male; she then leaves the nest and eggs to find another mate. The male incubates the eggs and raises the chicks alone for about nine months.

Although subject to ongoing habitat loss and overhunting in some areas, as of 2017 the Northern Cassowary is evaluated as Least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, as population size estimates suggest that populations are actually larger than previously estimated. Hunting is still considered the biggest threat. Native people use the bones and eggs, and take the chicks to be raised for meat. As logging opens up more areas of the forest, hunting will be more of a problem. Their occurrence range is 186,000 km (72,000 sq mi) and a 2000 estimate placed their numbers at 9300.