Kangaroo Rescue

Each year in Australia countless native wildlife – kangaroos, wallabies, and wombats – end up as roadkill. If a female is killed, it is quite likely that the young in her pouch is still alive. Jabiru*, a very passionate Australian, has devoted himself to raising orphaned baby kangaroos and with the help of donations has opened the Kanagroo Rescue Center in Alice Springs. He relies on tour guide drivers and other passing motorists to check females’ pouches and rescue baby kangaroos. Then he and his girlfriend spend the next year as the kangaroo’s surrogate mom – feeding them warm lactose free milk every four hours and constantly holding them as close as possible as the babies nuzzle in a pseudo pouch. At around four to six months the joeys hop out of the pouch for a few minutes at a time, but basically they spend a lot of time sleeping. By eight to ten months the joeys are permanently out of the pouch and spend their days playing with each other in Jabiru’s backyard. At night though, Jabiru, his girlfriend, and all the kangaroos sleep as one happy family in a tiny bedroom in an apartment they share with other very understanding roommates.

When the kangaroos are a year old they are released into a large outdoor enclosure where they learn to be wild kangaroos and fend for themselves. Every week their caretakers check up on them, but after six weeks they are released into the wild at locations very far from the nearest road. We were impressed by Jabiru and his rescue center as raising kangaroos is a very intense job. Human kids eventually grow up, but working with baby kangaroos means that you are constantly feeding them, holding them, and cleaning up after them. Once they are old enough to move into the enclosure, you’ve got another batch to raise and the process starts all over.

J and I enjoyed both holding the kangaroos as they napped and watching them propel themselves with their four paws and tail when they wondered around outside the pouch. It was also quite amusing to watch them enter the pouch – which was a pillowcase chopped in half. Usually they indicated they were ready to go back inside by standing on their hind legs and tail and pawing our legs with their front feet. They looked up innocently at us with their dark brown eyes. So we held the pouches down to their level and they somersaulted inside, squirming for a few seconds so that their head stuck out at one end and their feet and tail at the other. Our main task was to hold them as much as possible since they thrive on a feeling of closeness and warmth. We also burped them after they were fed by gently bouncing them up and down.

As much as we would have loved to stay for days on end, the joeys were so cute and adorable, we had to go back to our hostel and collect our stuff in order to board the night bus to Katherine.

Note: name changed for anonymity.