Kangaroo Sanctuary

We paid people a lot of money to write this interview. You were mentioned a lot. Was I? Oh good. Good things. Yes, like I said, it cost a lot of money for that. If you don't know what a Brolga is, people call me Brolga. That's a nickname, because a Brolga in Australia is actually a tall bird with long legs. I don't know where they got that. People think I'm... It's a bit like a stork. Do you know what a stork is? A Brolga is a tall skinny bird with long legs. Pardon? Fit for purpose. Thank you. If you can't say Brolga, you can call me Chris. This place here is my own private sanctuary for kangaroos. Me and my wife run it. We got about 200 acres of land here. And I'm a full-time kangaroo mum. Very popular hobby in Australia If you love animals and you want something different than a dog or a cat, you have kangaroos hopping around the house. You can only do it in Australia. Can you keep them as pets? We don't keep them as pets. We look after orphans. People can take them in their home? Yes, everyone cares for them in their own home. We have kangaroos hopping down the hallway, kangaroos jumping on the lounge, kangaroos sleeping on your bed. What we are, we call ourselves kangaroo mums. Because we foster orphan kangaroos. And in every town all over Australia, there's a little group of volunteers who take in orphan kangaroos to care for when their mothers have been killed on the highway. Very common sight in Australia, just like in Canada and America. The Americans and Canadians, I know you've got a lot of deer. I know you have a lot of traffic accidents with deer. In Australia, we've got a lot of kangaroos. Therefore, we have a lot of traffic accidents with kangaroos. There's an estimated 50 million kangaroos in Australia. 25 million people, 50 million kangaroos. Two kangaroos for every person. Yes. Kangaroos like to eat green grass. So, what happens, it's actually a hungry kangaroo that gets hit by traffic. It was a kangaroo looking for green grass. Now, if you look out in the bush at the moment, it's starting to get dry. I say starting to because it's still a little bit green. While things are green, the kangaroos have got lots of food to eat and they just stay in one spot. When it's green, we don't really see any dead kangaroos on our highways because the kangaroos have got lots of food. They just spread right out. It's starting to go dry now. When everything starts to go dry and we're having no rain, the green grass is harder to find. The kangaroos go hopping around the bush at night time, travelling many kilometres, looking for green. Eventually, they'll come to a highway. There's always beautiful green grass growing on the edge of the highway. Even if we're having no rain for a year, as long as there's traffic driving up and down, there's green grass growing on the edge of the highway and it grows there from pollution. The gas that comes out the back of our vehicle has got water in it. There is enough moisture in exhaust fumes to keep the grass on the edge of the highway greener than off the road. So if we're not having any rain, off the road is dry, right on the edge of the road, beautiful bits of green grass. And that attracts the hungry kangaroos. Kangaroos are active mostly at night time. If you go for a drive at night time, you'll see hundreds of kangaroos all feeding on the edge of the highway. And then a big vehicle like a greyhound bus. You all know greyhound? Sorry, I'll give that a bit of stick. A greyhound bus going through at midnight taking people from Alice Springs to Adelaide. Bang, hits them. This happens at night time. I was on a greyhound bus, I remember when I was about 20, about 10 years ago, and there was I reckon we hit 50 in one night. Bang, every 5 minutes. And the driver just kept driving. This is what happens in Australia. That's why in every town, every town all over Australia, we have people looking after orphan kangaroos. Because often the kangaroo that gets hit is a mother kangaroo. She's carrying the baby in the pouch. Mum's pouch is full of muscles. It's not just a bag. Mum's pouch has got muscles in it, muscles in the wall of the pouch, muscles in her stomach, so whenever she's hopping, muscles in the pouch tighten around her baby like a big seatbelt. These muscles stop the babies from falling out. So that shed there is about 9 metres long. That's about the distance a kangaroo can hop with each hop. A few Americans are only about 27 feet or something. That's how much a kangaroo can hop with each hop when they're going flat out and carrying a baby. And the baby doesn't fall out because muscles are wrapped around it, holding it in nice and tight. These muscles actually help protect babies during traffic accidents. So we say to people, if you're travelling around Australia, you hire your own car, you're driving around Australia, you live here, if you hit a kangaroo by accident, one jumps out in front of your car at night time, and you hit one by accident, don't keep driving. Get out of your car, park your car on the side of the road and check it. It could be a mother kangaroo with a baby in her pouch. Baby's surviving because the muscle's in the pouch. Yet, a lot of the dead kangaroos you'll see on your travels have actually been hit by that big greyhound bus that didn't stop. And sometimes they're mothers and their babies are still alive in the pouch, but all the traffic is driving past, no one's stopping. And that's because people don't know. We don't talk about it in Australia, just us wildlife carers in every town we're trying to tell people, but it's a big country. I used to be a tour guide and I used to stop for every dead kangaroo I saw. On one tour between Alice Springs and Uluru, I stopped for 87 kangaroos just on the first day. Wow. Five. Wow. We had them on the bus with us for the next three days. Wow. And it was those experiences that I had, I decided I gave up tour guiding because I realised I was the only one checking the dead kangaroos. There was no one else doing it. So I thought the best way to get more people checking is to teach people to become kangaroo rescuers. We can all play a part. When you're travelling around Australia or whether you live here, what we need people to do is put a pillowcase in the car. Because a pillowcase makes a great pouch for an orphan kangaroo. We carry around our orphans in pillowcases. I don't know if I told you, my mother's a 22 at the moment. 22 babies, but actually 12 of them are about this big and they're going back to the bush on Monday. Nice. They're going to go back out into the wild and I'll never see them again. But before they grow up, we care for them in our own homes by carrying them around in bags like this. So in here is one of my little babies. What did you think I had in there? My iPhone or something? In here is a little baby. We've had her about 6 weeks. She's very happy in there because this imitates her pouch. This is what you've got to put in the car, see a dead kangaroo on the highway, find a baby in the mum's pocket, put your hands in the bag, take the baby out, transfer it into a pillowcase, and then you hold it. You become like a mum kangaroo until you get it to hold. In Alice Springs each year, we get about 350 orphan kangaroos coming into our town. On average about one every day. This is a little girl. Her name is Lucy. Hello. Here she is. You can wear your phone out. She was rescued 6 weeks ago. She's now about 8 months old. Lucy, do you girls want to move to Australia? You haven't stopped smiling yet. Maybe you can marry a kangaroo and get a visa. Yeah, we are. So a baby is born the size of a jelly bean. We can't save that. But the baby progresses slowly, and when it's about 6 weeks of age, that size of a mouse is when it's classed as viable. That's when we can save them. So if you check a dead kangaroo on the highway and you actually find a little pink baby with no eyes open, no hair, best place for it is not in a pillowcase like this, but underneath your shirt, skin to skin. Inside mum's bag, it's skin. It's hair on the outside, skin on the inside, and the same body temperature as people. So stick a little baby underneath your shirt. If the baby's got hair like Lucy did when she was rescued, and obviously has now, a baby with hair, transfer it into a pillowcase, and you'll hold it. Don't put the baby in a cardboard box. Hold it. Hold the baby. You become the foster mother as the rescuer until you can get it to the next town. And then pass it over to someone like me. Here in Alice Springs we've got about 20 people that take in orphan kangaroos. There's a team of about 20 of us. Like I said, Jason the bus driver, his mum's a kangaroo mum too. Jason the bus driver. So he's out the back tending for a kangaroo. Anyway, we're allowed to look after them. So if you girls do want to move to Australia and you do want to do this, a lot of time cuddling your babies. Something tells me that they're not upset about that. A lot of time carrying the babies around in their pillowcases. So we watch a lot of TV. You know, you read a book. You're spending time holding your babies so they've got the breathing and the warmth of your body. They're in a pillowcase and that acts like their pouch. So we're giving them the best childhood with a lot of love as we can because they've lost their mum. But there comes a time where we've got to stop carrying them. And that's when Mother Kangaroo stops carrying them. That's when they're nine months old. So nine months, she's a red kangaroo. They stop getting carried at nine months. Nine months they stop getting carried and they follow the mum everywhere. So at nine months of age we stop carrying our babies and what we've got to do is never cuddle them again. You've got to be disciplined. It's hard, yes. At nine months of age we've got to stop cuddling them and we put them in the garden and we shut the back door. No more coming inside. But they won't be by themselves in the garden. We raise them as little groups. So like I'm releasing twelve on the weekend. They've been raised from very young together. All twelve little babies raised together in pillowcases are now this big and are ready to go back to the wild. And they have no problem with that? No problem at all. So we raise our babies. We're not allowed by law, we're not allowed to keep them as a pet. They have to go back to the wild. So if you want to, if you do want to look after them, I'm looking at you because you're still smiling. You can too. Anyone can move to Australia. Easy. Just pay the government a lot of money. Are they kind of independent though? Or will they stay in a pack? They stay in a pack. We call them a mob. Will you release them? Will they stay in whatever pack? They will as they transition to the wild and eventually break up. It's a good transition. If you want to look after them as a carer, you do a one day training course with me and then I'll give you two babies to take home. Don't allow anyone to have one baby. You've got to have at least two. How often do you have to feed them? Milk does change in composition as they get older. We have a special formula for kangaroos and it's the fat that increases as they get older. So she's on a milk that's high fat now, about 42%. Whereas younger ones are on one that's about 28%. And then the younger one goes down to about 14%. As they get older, you can buy a milk with increased fat. It's a low lactose formula. There's a company that makes kangaroo milk. How many get released as a mob? Pardon? How many go, like how big is a mob? Well, one dominant male, about my height, even a bit taller. Six or eight wives. That's out here where it's a desert. In areas on the east coast of Australia where it's a lot of population of people, lots of agriculture, nice and green and lush, a man can have 10 or 15 wives. So what we do in our homes is we raise the babies up, but yes, cuddle them, love them, give them lots of love, knowing that they're orphans and they really settle down and look at you as mother. But then later on, like I said, you must be disciplined. They put them in the garden and you've got to stop cuddling them. It's for their own benefit because to survive in the wild, there are people out there hunting them. And we don't want them running up to a human. It could be a hunter. Our local Aboriginal people hunt the kangaroo for dinner. And only Aboriginal people out here are allowed to hunt them, but we have a very large Aboriginal population. There's a lot of hunters in our springs. So we don't want our little babies approaching a hunter. So put them in the garden at nine months as a group. Stop cuddling them. Over many months they'll become a little bit wild. So I go into the garden with my 12. They all run away from me. That's why we're taking them back to the bush on the weekend. And that's the law. Now many years ago I had a problem. I had raised three kangaroos and they had injuries to their feet. And the animal doctor said don't return these three to the wild. They will never be quick enough to outrun the dingo. So the animal doctor said try and find them a home in a zoo. They can have a good life in a zoo, but they won't survive in the wild. I rang every zoo and wildlife department in Australia. No one wants another kangaroo. They're our most common animal. I couldn't find anyone that would take the three kangaroos. I even offered money to the wildlife but no one wanted them. So as you're not allowed a pet kangaroo and no one wanted these three, the government said they must be destroyed. So I couldn't allow that to happen because I was their mother. I couldn't dare the thought of them being put to sleep because no one wanted them. So I felt I had no choice. I wanted to anyway. I built my own place. This is why this sanctuary is here. That's why that big fence is there. I decided I'll build my own sanctuary for kangaroos that if we have one that will not survive in the wild it doesn't have to be put to sleep. It can come live here. And I was a zookeeper for many years. Zoos are small. The animals never have enough space. I wasn't really happy about them going to a zoo anyway. So I just decided to build this place as the next best thing to the wild. There's a fence but it fences off an area of about 50 acres. It's one big area. The next best thing to the wild. That fence there is to keep out the dingoes. The dingoes all around Alice Springs. That fence is dug underground three feet. It goes underground three feet. That's to stop the dingoes digging under. And then there's two electric wires at the base to zap a dog if he gets within two feet of the fence. And that protects the kangaroos. So this place here, the kangaroos you'll see tonight are all kangaroos that were either injured or occasionally we get ones that just don't become wild. As much as we try to get them wild in our garden, you get one that just, you go in your garden and they all run away from you. You've got one hanging off your leg. So we keep them. But on average we only keep three per year. I started off with three in 2009. Now I've got 56. And Roger had 24. Do some of them know you personally? I'm their mother still. And they'll come up to you? Some of them will come up to me, but the group people they'll run away. But I was their mother. In 50 acres I've got 56 kangaroos. So I've got one kangaroo per acre. I've only had one year in 14 years where I've had to give them supplement food. So there's generally always enough rain to keep the grass a little bit greener. So I only give them supplement food if they need it. Because I want them to be like wild ones. Anyway, let's go inside. Come through here. Much more over there. This is Saskia. And Saskia Hello. Saskia is 14 months old. Saskia is a little kangaroo. Does someone mind just closing that door if you don't mind? Thank you. Saskia is a kangaroo that was part of my 12 others that are going back to the bush on the weekend. I've actually got three of them that I decided to hold back because they didn't become wild. But Saskia was very badly injured when she came in. When she came into the care she had no hair. She had no hair. She had scrapes and cuts all over her. She must have come out of mum's pouch when mum got hit and was scraped across the ground. Very badly injured. So I've had to spend extra time cuddling her just so she'd survive and now she's unreleasable. But it was because she was so badly injured as a baby. But now she's perfect, aren't you? You just love people too much. So yeah, she's a keeper. And she's only been out here for about three days. We're going to go out there in about 10 or 15 minutes. Did you get some sanitiser? In about 10 or 15 minutes we'll go out there and look for my big kangaroos because the big kangaroos are just starting to wake up now. Kangaroos sleep all day. They will go out there very soon. If anyone does want to do this, like I said, like you girls do or anyone else, you want to do this. It helps if you live in Australia, of course. But you do your one day training course and then like I said, I'll give you two babies to take home. It must be two or more. You're never allowed one for one important reason. If you just have one kangaroo in your home, it will have no exposure to other kangaroos and it will grow up thinking it's a human. When the time comes to put it in the garden it would feel insecure because there will be no one else. You can take it with you or you can leave them at home. Just for a little time. You know if you push a trolley in the supermarket, there's a little area to put the baby child. We put our joeys in there. Really important, you must have at least two kangaroos to care for and that's also because we like to buddy up with each other. Each little orphan gets a best friend and that way they can buddy up with each other and they become like a mother to each other. So for little Lucy, her best friend is down here. I thought that was moving. This is how you put them when you want to go to the grocery store. This is a little joey and his name is Pancho. Pancho and Lucy are being raised together. So this way they've always got each other. And this way they are never alone. They're always together so they've got the breathing and the warmth of each other. This is why you must have two babies to care for, not the one. So they are never ever by themselves. I can't imagine why she can't go back to the wild. With the kangaroos, if you want to touch the kangaroos, just touch them on the back side. Don't touch the kangaroos on the head, just touch them on the back. Like this. They're beautiful and soft and they're very dusty. Now this kangaroo is looking at me because she actually she's a big baby and she wants a treat. Do you want to give her a treat? She gets a bottle of milk. And Austin, do you want to give her a bottle? Come over here. Come here mate. She's a big baby, she doesn't need milk but she loves a bottle of something. Her name is Cindy Lou. These kangaroos here, even she's pretty well full grown. Girls don't get much bigger than this. Yes, I got six stitches in my groin from Roger. Do you know Roger? The big one, yeah. Roger gave me six stitches in the groin, he kicked my kneecap, he busted my kneecap and another time he slapped me in the face and broke my nose. I raised Roger as a baby, so Roger grew up with no fear of people. If you hear the term wallaroo, it means mountain kangaroo. So you see how he's different, he's very round, he loves to cuddle, give him a cuddle. Very tactile, very round and he's got like human hair almost, where the others have got like velvet hair. And maybe the legs are not so long. Did you see the mountain range in the distance? See the mountain range that runs right through Alice Springs? Teddy belongs up there. So he's a mountain kangaroo, they're very common in our town because we have the Macdonald Ranges running right through town. If you want to go see these, the best place, 100% guarantee is the Botanical Gardens. It's called the Olive Pink Botanical Gardens. Go there, there's hills all around the Botanical Gardens, this is where they live. I thought those are wallabies. There is, there's little black-footed rock wallabies plus these. So red kangaroos, those ones just live in the flat country. These ones are all flat country kangaroos and these ones get hunted by the Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people don't hunt this one, they tell me he's too tough to eat. Because he lives in the mountains and he hops over the rocks, he has a lot more muscle. And they say he's not worth eating, he's too tough. And this is why you can see them up close in the wild, because they don't get hunted. It's like they're not afraid of people. So if you want to see them, anyone here in Alice Springs tomorrow, you want to see kangaroos in the wild, go to our Botanical Gardens, right in the middle of town. Ask your accommodation where it is, it's very close to everything. And there's a lovely cafe there, you can have breakfast or a coffee and you'll see these. Let us look at you. And they are awesome fun to look after as joeys because they jump all over your furniture. Nice. Are they more closely related to the red kangaroo? I don't know. Kangaroo, they're a kangaroo. There are four species of kangaroo. The red kangaroo, wallaroo, eastern grey kangaroo and western grey kangaroo. And there's about 40 species of wallaby. And what's the difference between a wallaby and a kangaroo? Well, a wallaby is just small. Where's Saskia? Here she is. So Saskia would be an alpha male wallaby. Saskia would be Roger. Wallabies are just small. So like a man wallaby wouldn't get much bigger than that. Whereas a man kangaroo is this big. Mum would have to carry two babies. She carries them up to 4 kilos. And she's only 25 kilos herself. So she can't really carry 8 kilos. So they never have twins, eh? No, very rare. Very, very rare. And they also come out of grey colour. That grey colour, which we call a blue, is what Lucy's going to be like. Lucy will be that colour. Whereas the dominant colour is red. That's why they get their name, red kangaroo. This boy, Bronco, he was about to get eaten. Really? Yeah, I rescued him. Some children had him as a pet. Some Aboriginal children. And they called me up to say, can you help me? We've got a pet kangaroo and my uncle's going to eat it. And I said, OK, well, I said, can I come see you on the weekend? They said, no, he's visiting tonight. So I went down to their camp, their reservation, 10 minutes away. Boy, that's a big dude over there. Hi! How are you? I was either mother to them or I rescued them. You just made my night. Hi! He's a blue, he's a red. He's dark red, he's light red. Just little things like that. That's the way we do it. Different colours, different facial features. Yep, yep, yep, they do. Bronco because he was kept as a pet. Retrained. And harmless. Even before he was sterilised, he was non-aggressive. Not everyone aggressive is a male. I reckon they're sort of born with an alpha male. I can tell. Like Wombat, the young boy, I think he'd be an alpha male. He's going to be big. So I'll keep him because he wouldn't be released anyway. I won't sterilise him and he'll be a lot better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's quite good. Some boys are small, some boys are big. He's a big boy. So will you come out here on your own and have a few alpha males out here? Or will you come out with somebody? What? Would I come out with somebody for safety? No, no, no. You can ask my wife. I would often send her emails from up a tree. Yeah, Roger would be chasing me up a tree and I'd just send her emails from on my phone. I'd say, where are you? I'm actually up an island tree. So I'm up an ironwood tree. Roger would be at the base of the tree, attacking the tree, knowing that I'm up there. So he'd be ripping the bark off. How long would it take from 10 minutes? 10 or 15 minutes. Roger would be ripping the bark off the tree. The one who was sterile, he still did that? No, he was fertile. Roger was fertile the whole way. So what is going on when it looks like they freeze all of a sudden? Are they listening? Are they watching? I don't know how they're frozen. They're listening. They're focusing all their attention. If you can see, his ears will be moving around like radar dishes. Deer do that too. Look at him. He's watching us. Although he's used to people, he's watching us. That's just his instinct. Should there be any concern about us, he will often run and then thump his feet on the ground. Thump, thump, thump, thump. That's a warning to the others. Danger is coming. No veterans? No, no. We only have vets come out here when we need a vet. Like if someone's injured. So we're just sterilizing the boys gets done out here. Do you have like a wildlife vet? There's a big boy right there too. He needed to be sent into state for a veterinary care. And then the vet said no, it's not worth risking the transport. They don't travel well. So we brought the vet up. So we brought a wildlife vet up specifically for that. So there are specific vets. And then there's vets. So there's vets for the dogs and the cats and the rabbits. But they're important people because the more experience they have, the better. Don't go near him. He could attack you. He's the former boss. He's the old boss. He actually beat up Roger, his dad, in a fight. And he took over. So he beat up Roger when Roger was 10 years old. His son, who would have been 6 or 7 at the time, ended up beating up Roger. And then we realized why he overthrew his father. His father actually had arthritis. Roger's muscles, his massive muscles, were giving him arthritis. And that's why Monty, and I had Monty fertile at that stage, he beat up his dad. Just get a picture of Roger, if you haven't seen Roger. He's a big dude. Yeah, yeah. I know most people haven't seen him on the internet.