The Rebounding Kangaroo

Australian outback and outer urban lore includes many examples of human–kangaroo interactions, too frequently involving collisions between vehicles and our national symbol at eventide or nightfall. Overnight roadside kills are so common along some highways, such as the Eyre across the Nullarbor Plain, that it has been necessary for road patrols to carry out a daily collection of carcases, to reduce distress to overseas tourists unused to such slaughter. Injuries to drivers, even fatalities, have also resulted from collisions or attempted avoidances. Beneficiaries include eagle and other raptor populations—provided they can get out of the way of oncoming vehicles in time. Our national news recently included a kangaroo inside Melbourne Airport’s passenger ; lacking a boarding pass, it was removed by security staff to greener pastures.

On a lighter note, the interactions are not always of the airport kind, or where a car or truck strikes the kangaroo. This one occurred on a sunny mid-afternoon along an outer Melbourne stretch of the Strathewen Road, locally known as Hoppers Crossing. Here, the local mob have developed a frequently-used pedestrian crossing, where large male and female eastern greys, led by locally-named Qantas the Flying Kangaroo (over six feet of spring-heeled sub-orbital ballistic macropod missile) soar over the roadside fence, followed by adolescents and juveniles through their ever-widening hole in the wire netting, straight across the road. There is little point in trying to repair the hole, the juveniles being far too smart, simply moving the hole along to the nearest convenient location by burrowing beneath or through humankind’s best attempts at kangaroo impedance. Verily, our national symbol can be a pain in the fence.

If they would but pause, look left or right, then cross with care, or perhaps wear fluorescent yellow jackets? Sad to relate, they do none of these things. Indeed, Jared Diamond has noted that one reason why our Aboriginal people never developed sedentary agriculture was their lack of domesticable native livestock that could be fenced in, rather than decamping overnight thirty miles from the would-be herders.

And so it came to pass that Qantas did come a-bounding joyfully down the hill, over the fence, down the embankment, onto the Strathewen Road, thud, at full speed amidships into the Toyota bearing your correspondent and young grandson Liam.

Thus it was that we have never run into a kangaroo—this one ran into us. The bemused beast bounced onto the pavement, hoisted himself groggily onto his haunches, shook his head, glared at us and (no exaggeration) swore, repetitive grunt-snort style, while his spouses/siblings/offspring/cousins/aunts did likewise, from the roadside. But as we had no camera, so this Attenborough-standard kangaroo road-rage vignette went unrecorded for future generations.

Luckily for us, rather than dragging us out and beating us up, Qantas and his entourage, with a parting curse or two, completed their crossing, bounding onwards and upwards into neighbouring broad sunlit uplands, whence they return at will, to and fro, over the road … an unpredictable kangaroo oscillation, potentially an inelastic collision to be avoided where possible by motorists.

If there is a moral to this tale: always proceed with caution, can’t be too careful, and keep your camera to hand. And perhaps those “Beware of Kangaroos” road signs could be modified to also read, “Or You’ll Be Dented”.