Lulu the Kangaroo Saves Farmer

[Anonymous]

Gotta get me a kangaroo. Maybe I can teach it kung fu. They taught a monkey ju jitsu. Kangaroos are fairly intelligent.

[Squeek]

...I want a dolphin... I'd keep him in the living room...

Dolphins are pretty smart too, you know... so are whales. Whales are just too big for my living room.

~Squeek

[Anonymous]

Maybe I'll get a horse. They're about as smart as a dolphin and you can ride around on them. I could train it to bring me downtown so I could get food. And I could train it to attack burglars. And maybe play the drums. I still think a kangaroo that knows kung fu would be cooler though. Burglars would be baffled as it did a flip over their heads and then kicked them through a wall. WATAAAAA!

[Squeek]

*sigh*....

Yes, a Kung-Fu Kangaroo would be the coolest thing in the world... and it'd beat out my dolphin idea, since flipper's gotta stay in the tank all day.

Fine then... I'ma teach an elephant how to fly!

GO DUMBO GO!!!

~Squeek

[Nick]

The only kangaroos I've seen have been in a zoo or on The Crocodile Hunter. I wonder if they are still in the wild in Australia or are they domesticated as the one in the story? Any Aussies have the answer? James?

[James S]

Sorry guys, in general Kangaroos are as thick as stumps! They're a heard grazing animal, like sheep, but unlike sheep, they can be quite vicious.

There are literally millions of the buggers in the country and outback areas, to the point where in some areas they need to be culled to keep the population down so they don't turn grasslands into (more) desert. You won't find them around populated areas, except for largish national parks in city areas. Actually there's a couple of golf courses down near Melbourne where the kangaroos are known to lounge around on the course and are to be considered a natural course hazzard.

It's very rare to have domesticated kangaroos. You can't own one as a pet due to national laws relating to the ownership of certain native animals. What can tend to happen though is that baby kangeroos (called Joeys) tend to be found by the sides of highways where the mother has met with the bullbar of a truck late at night. They get easily dazzled by headlights and try to jump around behind the lights, usually to come to grief from the side of the bullbar or the front wheels.

These joeys then get taken in by farmers or wildlife rescue services, and can quickly grow strong attachments to people they would see as a surrogate mother. I would say this was the case in the story Tisha told us of. They're generally not intelligent enough to do things like this unless there's a very strong bond with one or two people.

One of the reasons they're not considered good pets is because of how temperamental and dangerous they can be. A full grown Grey Kangaroo will usually reach a height of around 5 feet, and the Red Kangaroos (less common and usually only seen in the outback regions) have been recorded as standing up to around 7 feet. The males get very territorial, and there have been several nasty incidents at wildlife parks where a male will get ticked off with some tourist, will lean back on their tail grab the tourist with the front paws and kick. The kangaroo's kick is enough to knock a decent sized person off their feet, and the large claws on the back feet can cause some very serious damage with that force behind it.

Sorry to break any illusions of these being intelligent lovable city dwelling animals, coz they certainly ain't! This is of course with the exception of the old Australian TV series "Skippy", where Skippy was the pet of a rangers son. The son was absolutely thick as two short planks, whereas skippy could pass on complex messages, carry a gun and a range of other useful objects in his pouch (only female kangaroos have a pouch, yet amazingly so did skippy), and could probably disarm a stray nuclear warhead if need be. []

Regards,
James.

[Anonymous]

Too bad about the temper. Otherwise they might make great Muay Thai fighters lol. (I was just joking about teaching a kangaroo kung fu). Horses are actually intelligent. I remember this one time when I walked over to where my ex girlfriend had horses in her yard, I walked right up to the fence, and one came over to say hello. There were others with me but for some reason it was interested in me more than the others. I wonder if it had anything to do with what cologne or deodorant I was wearing.

[Anonymous]

I only say this because in the animal world, most animals react to smell. It tells them where food is.

[James S]

Good job you weren't wearing "eu de Lucern" aftershave []

Some horses are intelligent!
I remember a story about this guy driving through the country, and his car started spluttering and finally died. He let it roll off the side of the road, up beside a paddock fence. He tried starting it again a couple of times, gave up, popped the bonnet and stood looking at the engine scratching his head.

There were two horses in the paddock, a grey horse and a brown one. The brown horse walked over, stretched over the top of the fence and then stood with its head right under the bonnet. The guy got back in and tried to start the motor, to see if it would go and to scare the nosey horse away. Neither worked. He got back out, then the horse looked at him and said "its not getting any fuel. I'd say your fuel filter's blocked."

Stunned, the guy stared drop-jawed at the horse. Again the horse spoke: "don't just stand there staring, take the filter out, blow the crap out and try it again. Well? Go on!". The guy did what the horse said, and the car started. Before he drove off the horse said "now go into the next town, go to the garage and get a new filter." then walked off.

The guy got into town, found the garage, left it with the mechanic, then walked to the nearest bar. Sitting down at the bar, the barkeeper said "what's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."
The guy said "I...I...my...car broke down beside a paddock a few miles back out of town...and there were these two horses...and one of them stuck its head under the bonnet and told me how to get the car started..."
The Bartender said "two horses heh? A brown one and a grey one?"
"Y-Y-Yes."
The Bartender said "which horse came over to you?"
"T-The b-brown one."
"Ah. Good job it wasn't the GREY one."
"W-W-Why?"
"Well you see, the grey one don't know jack about cars!"

[]
James.

[Nick]

Good one James []. Now I'll go see the movie Seabiscuit again (great movie about a great horse). Also, thanks for all that information on the kangaroos, I had no idea.


Very best,

[clandestino]

I was in Brisbane recently; I saw a few kangaroos at the "woolshed".

They looked quite friendly, compared to the dingoes ! At least if a dingo carries your kid away, you can hope that Lulu the kangaroo will bounce to the rescue.....!

Mark

[Tisha]

Mon September 22, 2003 09:41 AM ET
CANBERRA (Reuters) - A kangaroo named Lulu was hailed a hero Monday for saving an unconscious Australian farmer by alerting the man's wife and leading her to where he lay trapped under a fallen tree branch.
Hobby farmer Leonard Richards was checking for storm damage on his property at Tanjil South, 150 km (93 miles) east of Melbourne, Sunday morning when he was hit by a falling branch.

In a story reminiscent of the long-running Australian children's television series Skippy, in which a pet kangaroo rescued people in distress in the Australian bush, the kangaroo began barking until Richards' wife came to investigate.

She found her husband lying unconscious under a tree about 200 meters (650 feet) from the house, guarded by the gray kangaroo. Lulu was hand-reared by the Richards family, who rescued her from her mother's pouch and fed her on bottles after her mother was killed by a car about four years ago.

"Dad was totally out of it and Lulu was sitting by him in the bush making this really unusual yapping noise until Mum got there," Richards' 19-year-old son Luke told Reuters.

"It was so lucky. Dad could have been there for hours if it wasn't for her," he said.

Richards was taken to hospital with suspected head injuries but allowed home Sunday night.

Animal welfare group the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) called for Lulu to be nominated for its annual national bravery award.

"This award is given to animals who do something for humans of an exceptional nature and Lulu certainly has done that," national president Hugh Wirth told Reuters.