Man kept ‘world’s most dangerous bird’ as pet that killed him in gruesome fashion
A US man died after being attacked by a fearsome bird that he had been keeping at his home.
75-year-old Marvin Hajos, who lived in Alachua in northern Florida, had a deep fascination with birds, especially cassowaries, with his friend Jim Glynn telling Fox 35 that he was even invited regularly to speak about them in lectures.
Cassowaries are large, flightless, emu-like birds that live in Australia and New Guinea, though they have a fierce reputation.
He had been trying to help to preserve the species as they are endangered in the natural environment, keeping two breeding pairs - along with other exotic animals - at his house.
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Sadly, it was these efforts which would prove fatal for Marvin during an incident in 2019.
Cassowaries, for the most part, are wary of humans and will mostly just walk or run away when encountered.
However, in certain circumstances they can become aggressive, for example if cornered or provoked.
In Marvin's case, it was the presence of eggs which made the cassowaries more dangerous than they might otherwise have been.
Marvin - who held a licence for the two breeding pairs of cassowaries - noticed that one of the females was protecting her eggs from the males, screeching at them.
Part of cassowaries' behaviour is that males can become agitated and even attempt to smash eggs, particularly when it is breeding season for the species.
This has resulted in one of the females becoming distressed and defensive as she tried to fend off the male.
In an effort to defuse the situation, Marvin had gone to try and retrieve the eggs and put them in an incubator so that they would be less likely to be destroyed by the male, or during the general confusion.
Unfortunately, while he was retrieving them, one of the large birds launched itself at him, knocking him to the ground.
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.”
He called his daughter for help, but there was nothing she could do to intervene.
A woman at the property, reported to be Marvin's partner, said afterwards that he died 'doing what he loved'.
According to Glynn, Marvin began volunteering at The Bronx Zoo aged just 10 to learn all about birds.
“He was aware of the dangers of these animals. He would not allow anyone else to be exposed to them. He was a knowledgeable guy,” he said.
One look at a cassowary and it's not hard to see why they are regarded as one of the most dangerous birds out there, even though they only attack humans if provoked or scared.
Firstly, they are large birds, with the Southern Cassowary measuring around 1.8 metres tall and weighing around 45kg, and also capable of running at 30mph.
But it's a look at a cassowary's feet which reminds us just where birds come from, as they sport a large claw on their toe reminiscent of a velociraptor, though they're actually much bigger than velociraptors were.
Despite this, however, Marvin was only the second person confirmed to have been fatally attacked by a cassowary, with the other happening in 1926 when an Australian teenager and his friends hit a cassowary with a club, after which the bird launched a fatal attack.
Kit Roberts