A boy holds his mother's leg as he cries in front of their damaged house after a strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake at Longmen village, Lushan county in Ya'an, Sichuan province. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

A girl sticks out her tongue during snowfalls on a street in Hefei, Anhui province February 13, 2014. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A truck laden with logs travels in Araribóia Indigenous Reserve, Maranhão, Brazil on August 7, 2015. Loggers have been stealing hardwood trees from indigenous lands in Brazil. The Guardians of the Forest are an armed militia formed by the Guajajara tribe to protect their reserve. (Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

A country music fan cools off in the wind on the second day of the Stagecoach country music festival in Indio, California April 26, 2014. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

Buyan, a male Siberian brown bear, is given a shower by a zoo employee in his enclosure at the Royev Ruchey zoo in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk June 24, 2014. The Siberian city has been experiencing temperatures of around 30 degrees Celsius over the last week. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

People walk through crop circles in a cornfield near Raisting, Germany, on July 28, 2014. According to media reports, a balloonist had discovered the circle some days ago. Since then, hundreds of people came to the field to watch it, however it is unclear who did create the pattern. (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/DPA)

Balinese girls in traditional costumes gather during a parade for this year's last sundown in Bali island, Indonesia Thursday, December 31, 2015. (Photo by Firdia Lisnawati/AP Photo)