One of my daughter’s friends takes care of wallabies and kangaroos who have been orphaned, usually because their mother was hit by a car. Kylie lives in boulder country, along a dirt track, and shares her house with a number of macropods, mainly grey kangaroos, but also swamp wallabies and red neck wallabies. Two tiny ones live in cloth pouches in clothes baskets under doonahs. Five live in a play pen in the corner of the living room. Two peep out of cloth pouches hanging from a frame. Two more are in the yard outside until evening chills the air, when Kylie picks them up and transfers them inside. A mother with a joey in her pouch hovers round kangaroo pellets and eyeballs a willy wagtail. There are more granite hopping below the house. She shows us the body of a really tiny hairless wallaby, ears still close to the head, rescued from a pouch and still attached to its mother’s teat, too small to survive.
Kylie’s knowledge is encyclopaedic and she’s always adding to it as new problems arise. When the animals in her care are ready to be released into the wild, she puts them in the outside pen, leaving the door open so they can test the outside world and return if they need to. Gradually they stay away permanently.
At the moment Kylie is at maximum capacity. The night-time feeding regimes means she is getting very little sleep, and her charges cost a heap to look after – special macropod pellets and medicine when they are sick don’t come cheap. But she is passionate about her role and such passion somehow breeds energy.
I really admire Kylie, she gives her all to these beautiful creatures who fall victim to human self centeredness. I hope she gets some practical and financial help.
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Hats off to Kylie for doing such wonderful work. We need more people like Kylie 💞💞💞
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Lovely photos Meg, best one I have seen of a Willy Wagtail in a long time. I have a bit of an awful quality movie I made on Super 8 with a small portion of a Willy at Grawn I should ig out and see what I can do with.
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I liked the conversation between bird and macropod.
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Bless her, what a wonderfully warm hearted woman. The photos make you want to grab an armful. Gently, of course! 🙂 🙂
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Kylie was happy for me to photograph, but I was still a bit hesitant. I’ve never seen such healthy looking creatures. A fluffy macropod hug to make up for the boulders ones – which you were supposed to unwrap to find the soft centre!!
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The body is tired tonight so the brain can’t keep up. Are you joining me, Jude and Gilly on What’s App? Don’t ask me how- Jude started it. 🙂 🙂
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?? No is my immediate response. Too tied to digital stuff.
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Oh my goodness, what dedication and sheer hard work – kudos to the girl
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She is amazing. And macropods aren’t her only volunteer contribution to the community: somehow she finds time for women’s health and Boomerang Bags.
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Boomerang bags?
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Cloth bags you take back to be used again
http://boomerangbags.org
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Oh, OK!
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I have watched the programme about the guy in Alice who runs a sanctuary. Very touching. Perhaps Kylie needs to get more publicity to get the donations rolling in. It must be very hard (and often heart-breaking) work I imagine, as well as costly. Such a shame there is a need for these sort of sanctuaries.
https://kangaroosanctuary.com/
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At the moment she’s begging for no more speed on the roads, or at least no joeys in pouches. For her, the satisfaction outweighs the heartbreak I think. We did talk about crowd-sourcing. Kylie runs macropod-related craft sessions, but they don’t raise much money.
https://www.facebook.com/Kylies-Kindy-Roo-Kapers-260783747660891/?fref=ts
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