Racquet

Everybody loves Racquet and Racquet loves everybody. He was found on the side of road with a severe head injury and fractured jaw, severely dehydrated, semi-conscious and covered in maggot eggs. He was 15 kg and was brought to us around midnight last summer . The vet thought his prognosis was poor. Because of his fractured jaw he had to be syringe fed for several months. He had vertigo for a number of weeks.Racquet is a very ‘laid -back ‘kind of kangaroo – the Fonz of the kangaroo world . He

Crackles and Dr Who

Crackles was a 5kg kangaroo joey who was found alone in a paddock being attacked by a fox (28 October, 2013). He suffered fractured ribs, severe abdominal bruising and extensive puncture wounds to head, neck and back. From his injuries Crackles developed subcutaneous emphysema, a potentially fatal situation where air increasingly occupies space under the skin. The veterinarian believed his prognosis was poor.Dr Who was a 5kg at-heel joey who was rescued in suburbia in a highly stressed state wit

Tammy and Danny

Tammy had been lying near a farm dam for three days without her mother before being brought into care. She was 5kg and had pelvic fractures and a deep laceration to her ankle involving an ankle ligament. She was unable to stand and was very dehydrated.Danny was a 5kg joey rescued from inside his dead mother’s pouch. He had been fending off an attack from a fox when rescued. The fox had begun to tear at the mother’s pouch to get to the joey. Danny was highly stressed and agitated when brought to

Hope

Hope was a 6kg kangaroo that was caught in a wire fence. She had a compound fracture of one of the metatarsal bones which was pinned and splinted.It has taken a long time for the wound to heal. Fence injury wounds are usually severe because of ischaemic damage. She adopted one of the older in care females -Ellie- as her mother is now hopping well . She will be released with her friends at a safe release site.

Big Max makes full recovery and goes free

Just before Christmas Steve and Rosemary were called to rescue a huge kangaroo that had been hit by a vehicle near Queanbeyan. Max must have been 75kg and 2 metres tall. His injuries included a fractured cheek, fractured upper palate, head injury and severe concussion. His jaw was intact. The rescue was undertaken around midnight and Max was brought back to the Possumwood Recovery Centre for treatment and recovery. As Max continued to improve he became increasingly difficult to medicate.After t

Big Autumn Move Almost Completed

Our Autumn move of rehabilitated kangaroos to their delayed-release site is now nearing completion; with their eventual release on 2000 acres of remote private wildlife sanctuary land. Thirty four animals have so far been translocated to the five acre pre-release enclosure with another three to be moved in the next few days. A further 30 kangaroos will be translocated and released in Spring. Kangaroo translocation and release back to the wild has to be undertaken very sensitively and with a l

From Chaos to Calm in a Second

One of the joys of living with wild animals is going for a walk and having previously cared-for animals come over to you to say ‘hello’.Recently Rosemary was out walking in the afternoon. It was windy and the local kangaroo mob were unusually nervous. Kangaroos don’t like the wind as it disturbs their vital senses of hearing and smell. But on this occasion the mob were even more nervous so she decided to look around the area to see what was upsetting them. She heard a commotion near one of the f

Tangled up with Tangles and Captain (his father)

Late in the afternoons the local kangaroo mob with their alpha male gather near our treatment centre in the hope they might get some additional feed. Most times we oblige and give them a bucket or two.This allows us to monitor our wild mob for sick or injured animals . For a few weeks we had noticed one of the mothers had a very large joey in her pouch and wondered why it had not yet emerged. The answer became clear one such evening.Looking at the local mob we noticed the joey from the mother

Fur Elise

She was as beautiful as the music she was named after and a very lucky little joey. Elise was caught by her foot in a wire fence suspended off the ground on a hot afternoon. The wire had cut deeply into the skin proximal to the metatarsophalangeal joint( between the ankle and toe).Just imagine how it must feel to be suspended upside down and unable to touch the ground to relieve the pull on your leg .The wire wound tightly around your leg cuts off the circulation and as you struggle to get free

Emotional Eyes

Steve and Rosemary’s story‘Dasher’ had lost her long time and inseparable companion ‘Rudi’ to cardiomyopathy – resulting from being chased by a dog.For weeks Dasher ran expectantly back and forth to all the favourite places she had shared with her friend – the Casuarina embankment, ‘Rudi’s tree’ with its long shady branches, amongst the rose bushes and in amongst the violets calling out urgently . She pulled herself up high enough to look through every window of the house with the same sense of

George

George is a lucky kangaroo. A member of the public stopped by the side of the road in the ACT and noticed movement in the pouch of a dead female kangaroo. Following instructions over the phone the member of the public was able to reach into the pouch and safely extract George who was only 500 grams and furless( called a pinkie).He was transported across the border into safe care in NSW away from likely death at the hands of the ACT Government(orphan kangaroo joeys are bashed or beheaded in the