The Political Rock Star Helps Another Odd Bird

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Australia's endangered Southern Cassowary, the world's second largest bird after the Ostrich, can do a fair job of protecting itself, but the country's environment minister, former Midnight Oil lead singer Peter Garrett, has lately come to its rescue.

By BELINDA LUSCOMBE, Time

As elected officials go, Australia's environmental minister Peter Garrett is a pretty strange bird. Extremely tall and extremely bald, he'd stand out in most corridors of power. Then there's the fact that until 2002, he was lead singer of one of the country's biggest rock bands, Midnight Oil ("How can we sleep when our beds are burning?" and so on). Plus he's a committed Christian, which in robustly atheist Australia is considered rather odd.

On July 29, Garrett burnished his already offbeat reputation, harnessing the powers of a seldom-used federal environmental act to block a residential development that was to have been built at Mission Beach, a rainforest area on Australia's remote north eastern coast, where, after bananas and sugar, tourism is one of the biggest industries. The target of his concern? The Southern Cassowary.

As strange birds go, the cassowary has the honorable Mr. Garrett licked. Also extremely tall — it's the world's second largest bird after the ostrich — the cassowary can run up to 30 miles an hour, jump five feet or so, and has a 5-inch claw on its middle toe, with which it can disembowel other creatures. It's listed in the Guinness book of Records as the World's Most Dangerous Bird. Luckily the cassowary is flightless and frugivorous (mostly eating fruits and seeds off the ground), but it's also extremely cranky and will attack if it's provoked, running and lunging with its middle claw extended. It gives a whole new meaning to "flipping the bird".

Perhaps because its temperament does not invite close encounters, not all that much is known about the cassowary. Among the known unknowns, for example, is the reason it can eat fruits and seeds that are poisonous to other animals. Also unclear is the function of the odd, finlike casque that sits atop its brilliant blue head and neck. Some studies have suggested it's used as a sort of battering ram as the bird belts headlong through the rainforest, while others contend it's to help the bird hear the calls of other cassowaries — reputed to be the lowest pitch of all bird calls, almost inaudible to humans.

Cassowaries have an unusual, some might say scandalous, parenting arrangement: After mating, the much larger female lays the eggs and then exits the scene. The male builds the nest, hatches the eggs and then feeds and nurtures the chicks until they're a year old. The female meanwhile has found other mates and laid more eggs for them to look after, before running off again.

Despite this fertility-encouraging division of labor, southern cassowaries are listed as endangered on Australia's threatened species list, and fewer than 1,500 of them are known to exist in the Mission Beach area — although the birds also inhabit other parts of Australia and Papua New Guinea. Garrett says the development would have cut off a corridor the birds use between what's left of its natural coastal habitat and the adjoining World Heritage wetlands area.

Now that Garrett has used his veto, the developer can build one dwelling on the proposed site rather than the 40 it was hoping for. And it's entitled to no compensation. "While it's often possible to minimize the potential impacts of a project or development like this, I don't think that's achievable in this case," said Garrett. "That's why I've taken the serious and unusual step of acting to rule this out completely."

The government's decision came as something of a surprise to the local council, which normally approves or rejects development applications. But the mayor of Cassowary Coast, as the region is known, was only too happy to let Garrett step in. "Local government can only reject applications in the knowledge that, if a developer suffers damage as a result of an adverse decision... then council may have to compensate for that loss," wrote Mayor Bill Shannon on the local council's website. "I personally therefore welcome the Minister's action."

The cassowaries probably do too. Not that anyone's going to venture close enough to ask.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8...1830330,00.html

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Shut up - the Midnight Oil singer is the Environment Minister??? that's kind of cool.

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

very interesting article

[NavarreMan 10]

Who would have thunk it.

[Sassy1natl 0]

Wow... I Midnight Oil...

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[one...two...tree 2,762]

Wow... I Midnight Oil...

Me too. The last song that I remember them doing was The Forgotten Years. Here's the video.

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Very admirable of him to intervene for this creature. I've never heard of this bird before but it looks beautiful.

[alienlovechild 75]

Shut up - the Midnight Oil singer is the Environment Minister??? that's kind of cool.

That's nothing. The guy who was in the band, Men At Work, is the Labour Minister.

[HAL 9000 96]

Shut up - the Midnight Oil singer is the Environment Minister??? that's kind of cool.

Well he WAS a politician before making it big with Midnight Oil, too- if I remember correctly. Nice guy, too.