The Canopy Treehouses

Tui is a Southern Cassowary, a member of the Ratite genus that includes Emus, Ostriches, and Rheas.
The Southern Cassowaries are native to the tropical forests of Australia, New Guinea and some nearby islands in the Indonesian archipelago, although the vast majority of the Australian population inhabit the coastal and n...earby mountain ranges in a band ranging from Cardwell to the Bloomfield River.
The Southern Cassowary is evaluated as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and a 2002 study estimated a population of between 1,500 and 2,500 left in Australia.
Tui has been a regular visitor at The Canopy since February 1991. He wandered in as a sub-adult, (probably about 18 months old and brown in colour) and has made this rainforest his primary home ever since. Although he goes walk-about for a few months during the mating season from May to December, he always returns here to bring up his chicks.
Male Cassowaries raise the young with the female leaving as soon as the eggs are laid. The males will sit on the eggs for 50 days and will then care for the chicks for around 10 months.
It is believed Tui heads to the Wooroonoonan National Park region to find his mate and nest, and will walk the newly hatched chicks back to our rainforest as soon as they are strong enough.
Cassowaries have a reputation of being very dangerous and aggressive. Their principle weapon is their large clawed feet that they use in a sideways kicking motion, (it is widely rumoured that Steven Spielberg modelled the Raptor’s claws in Jurassic Park on Cassowary feet), however Cassowaries very rarely attack unprovoked. Tui has never attacked anyone here.
Cassowaries eat fruit, reptiles and small mammals - in fact anything they can find, except red coloured fruit which is often poisonous. They are flightless ground dwellers with males averaging 50 kilos and females 60 kilos. (One female in a wildlife park weighed 80 kilos!)
Cassowaries are a keystone species of forests because they eat fallen fruit whole and distribute seeds across the jungle floor via their droppings with a number of rainforest trees dependant on Cassowaries for propagation.
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Our cassowary Tui has returned this year with two chicks. To celebrate, we're offering you the chance to win two nights accommodation, just by giving them names.

Simply post your idea below by 30 June. Our managers David and Sharon will select the top five entries, and guests at The Canopy during July will vote for th...e winner.

Names in the past have included Quandong (after a rainforest fruit), Hansel and Gretel (they got lost in the forest...) and Larry and Monica (after the two major cyclones that year).

This prize is fully transferable, so enter today!Read More