A 75-year-old Florida man died after being attacked by a cassowary he kept at his home, becoming only the second person in recorded history to be killed by the bird.
Marvin Hajos lived in Alachua, a city in northern Florida, and had kept exotic animals for years, including cassowaries, flightless birds that resemble emus and are considered the most dangerous of their kind.
Deadly Attack While Protecting Eggs
On a Friday in 2019, one of the female cassowaries — from the two breeding pairs kept at the house — was protecting her eggs from males of the species, which are known to try to smash them, particularly as they become more aggressive around breeding season.
Hajos tried to retrieve the eggs and put them away safely in an incubator when one of the birds launched at him. Lieutenant Brett Rhodenizer, from the County Sheriff Department, said: “We believe he went in there to recover that egg and then at some point the bird was able to make its attack.”
Fatal Injuries and Aftermath
Hajos fell to the floor in a vulnerable position and called for his daughter’s help, but there was little she could do. He was taken to hospital, where he subsequently died from his injuries. His partner told police the family’s tragedy happened while Hajos was “doing what he loved”.
Equipped with dagger-like, five-inch-long claws, cassowaries can weigh more than 100 lb (45 kg) and run up to 30 mph, meaning attacks from such birds can prove fatal. Cassowaries are native to the tropical forests of New Guinea, the Moluccas, and northeastern Australia.
Passion for the Species
According to friend Jim Glynn, Hajos had a love for birds that began when he worked at the Bronx Zoo as a child. 65 years later, he held a permit to care for cassowaries and a passion for preserving the species. Glynn told Fox35 that Hajos was a notable figure in the field, often invited to speak at universities about the species.
After the attack, the cassowary that attacked Hajos remained at the property for a period before the family said they had no plans to keep the birds at their property — a decision that proved hard for the family, since they “knew how much [Hajos] loved his birds.”
Even though cassowaries are known as the world’s deadliest bird due to a combination of dangerous factors, Hajos was only the second human in recorded history to be killed by one. The only other time was almost a hundred years earlier, when, in 1926, an Australian teenager was killed after he and his friends struck a cassowary with a club.
