Carnage in backyard as panicked kangaroo hops six-foot fence
A wildlife expert has warned she expects these incidents will continue to increase.
After a kangaroo injured itself so badly in a suburban backyard last week that it was forced to be humanely euthanised, a heartbroken wildlife rescuer said she expects similar incidents to occur as humans continue to destroy their natural habitat.
Krysti Severi, of Rescue Rehabilitate Release, said that she was called out to a property in Mill Park on Friday, in Melbourne's northeast, after a three-year-old kangaroo hopped a six-foot fence and crash-landed into a glass table.
Completely shattering it, and leaving "glass smashed everywhere", the animal was left with a serious knee injury. Severi said the roo had tried to free itself after the initial fall, but ended up slamming into a window, causing even more damage to itself and the property.
"Really the only access was the sliding door," Severi told Yahoo News Australia of the situation when she arrived. "And by opening a sliding door... that could have sent him off into an absolute panic.
"We didn't want that stress of him trying to scale the fence again — especially with the injury that he had.
"The member of the public had left his roller door open too, trying to get him out, but thank God he didn't because obviously hopping the streets with that sort of injury, he would have died a long, horrible death."
Severi said eventually she managed to find an angle through a window where she was able to "carefully get him in my sights and release the (tranquilliser) dart safely into his bum".
The animal was then transported for treatment, but despite the efforts of vet staff — who identified a serious knee fracture — it was unable to be saved.
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'Problem' highlights our relentless urban sprawl
While there's no way to tell what exactly caused the animal to jump across the fence, with Severi's hypotheses including the possibility that it had been chased by a dog, the wildlife worker said these incidents highlight the impact of the country's relentless urban sprawl on the native wildlife population.
"The problem is, and I've said it many, many, many times, is that there's no provisions for wildlife at all," she said. "We are going to continue seeing these sorts of issues if governments, developers and councils do not actually start to figure how to install urban corridors, or wildlife corridors that lead the animals back to their homes.
"You've got roadworks everywhere — especially in my area — where they've got temp fencing nearly the whole way down the road, and then you've got roos [that get trapped].
"I rescued one the other day, she'd been trying to get back to where she needed to go for about five hours and she just she couldn't, she couldn't get to where she needed to go. She was in suburban streets, just hopping around.
"She slipped on the ground, she's fallen over and it's all that sort of stuff, it just adds extra stress."
Run off her feet with job requests, Severi called on both the state and federal governments to implement more protections for our native wildlife when it comes to our ever-expanding suburbs.
With Australia's population continuing to increase — which some projections estimate will reach 30 million by the end of the decade — so too does the need for more homes and infrastructure, which subsequently, will mean mean less space for native animals.
'We need better planning', wildlife expert urges
As it stands, habitat loss remains a critical threat to many of Australia's most iconic species — including koalas, which were listed as endangered in 2022. In fact, since the 1960s, an estimated 23 animal species have been wiped from their home ranges.
"We just need better planning," Severi said. "You look at the new estates, the ones near me, they start building on land from the front, and at the back and then on the sides — where do the roos go that are trapped in the middle? Where do they go?
"They're getting hit. That's where."
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