The Whisker Woods Sanctuary in the Australian Capital Territory recently posted a photo to Facebook, about how one of their people rescued a kangaroo years ago, only to have the marsupial return for a friendly visit years later.
The poster on the page said they released “this boy” several years ago, and he’s finally come back to visit, which isn’t a common occurrence at all for kangaroos as they usually find a group of other kangaroos to be around all the time, called a “mob.”
Jack, the kangaroo who came back, injured himself trying to hop some fences, presumably barbed wire or razor wire several years ago and required care. The poster on Whisker Woods Sanctuary said he needed a lot of care to recover from his injuries. On his feet there were scars, you can tell he was the one from years ago who suffered injuries from the fence cutting him.
Like elephants but not nearly as intense, it seems kangaroos are capable of remembering a person from years before.
Jack the kangaroo gave the person hugs, and he looks to be enjoying his happy hopping life thanks to the people from the sanctuary!
It’s strange to think about how people eat meat, and how it seems so out of place to eat kangaroo meat. However then you think about it, and cows and pigs are both mammals capable of being as cute and intelligent as a kangaroo.☺️☺️☺️ I released this boy years ago and he's come back to visit, which isn't common for the boys (they move on and find their own mob).
Jack was a fence hanger, and needed a lot of care to recover....you can still see the scars on his feet from the fence cutting into him.
He rembers me for sure and gave me hugs with a little boxing
Here in Australia, you really do see kangaroos at least once a week in the distance. When I visited my friends in Texas several months ago and they asked me about Australia, too many of them happened to ask if Australians eat Kangaroo meat.
I responded with something along the lines of “hell no why would people eat kangaroos!”
Upon returning to Australia recently, I was at Coles, a main supermarket chain you’ll find here and out of the corner of my eye I saw this particularly dark red meat. *Facepalm: it was kangaroo meat.
Sadly, kangaroos actually do need some respect and help to not one day become an endangered species in Australia. They are hunted often, even sometimes found mutilated or decapitated for no reason. The state sort of encourages people to hunt, similar to the way feral cats are seen as free game to shoot and kill in Queensland, even at the tune of the local government paying for the scalps of kittens and cats. Yes they literally paid people for kitten scalps in Australia.
A real threat to the Australian kangaroo population seemed to rise last year, when millions of kangaroos just mysteriously dropped dead of some illness that can’t be identified. According to the Sunday Times:
“Kangaroos are dying in their millions, struck down by an unknown illness that causes inflammation, stilted movement, haemorrhaging and blindness.
Red and grey kangaroos, which nationally number in the tens of millions, have been found dead or dying across the western plains of New South Wales.”
However, news coverage of this kangaroo pandemic is almost non-existent in the past few months. It’s unclear whether that mysterious illness is still active, or if anybody figured out what it was.
(Image credit: Pixabay, Whisker Woods Sanctuary, March Against Monsanto)