Plan B Forum

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 12:49 am**

A baby kangaroo was brought back from the dead after being given the kiss of life by a wildlife carer. So young that it hadn’t even grown hair yet, the joey - the name given to baby kangaroos - was rushed to a rescue centre after it was found lying lifeless by the side of a road near Melbourne, Australia. The tiny pink animal was cold to the touch, but Lisa Milligan didn’t give up hope. She breathed air down its nose and mouth and massaged its heart until it suddenly came to.

‘It was gone for all love and money. It wasn’t breathing. It was icy to touch and rigid,’ Ms Milligan told Australia’s Herald Sun newspaper. ‘But I kept going and after 15 minutes, it suddenly barked, which is what they do. And it started turning from a lifeless grey colour to perfect pink again.’ Ms Milligan has settled on calling the four-month-old creature Bernie, having concluded that naming him Lucky would be plain unlucky. ‘I think Bernie will suit him, after the movie Weekend At Bernie's,’ she told the paper

He was found by the side of a road next to his dead mother, who had been killed by a collision with a car. Ms Milligan, who works at the Wildlife Rescue Centre at Kilmore, near Melbourne, explained that a passer-by had dragged the body of the adult to the side of the road so that his daughter would be spared from seeing it on her journey to school the next day. It was then that he noticed the joey lying worryingly still not far away.

Praying that there was a hope he could be saved, the kind-hearted motorist dashed to the wildlife centre, where Ms Milligan saved him. Kangaroos are particularly vulnerable near roads as engine noise and bright headlights surprise them and cause the energetic creatures to bound into oncoming traffic. Such is the damage a kangaroo can cause a car that many are fitted with protective ‘roo bars’. Sadly, because joeys travel in the pouches of their mothers, they too are often victims of collisions

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1NbU0GBhq

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 12:53 am**

All States and Territories do not allow registered wildlife carers to nurse pinkies. The roo, should it survive will never be able to be released.

It was very brave of her to release this story. Chances are that her hobby as a carer is now on the rocks.

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 12:56 am**

By "pinkies" I take it you mean Joeys that are not ready for life outside the pouch?

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 12:58 am**

Yup. A hairless Joey, like a hairless mouse, is known as a pinkie.

Just because this story wasn't reported in an Ozzie paper, won't stop the authorities from removing her licence to "care".

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 1:02 am**

It was reported in the Herald Sun, so she's probably screwed as a carer...

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 1:14 am**

So the right thing to do would have been to leave it by the side of the road to die?

Granted a life in captivity can't compare to a life in the wild, but would letting the thing die of exposure and starvation by the side of the road really have been better?

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 2:50 am**

No. The right thing to do would be to humanely euthanase it.

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 2:58 am**

I disagree.

This isn't a case of the "course of nature" being interfered with by human intervention. What's natural about the mother being hit by a car?

If this woman's license is jeopardized by some automaton bureaucrat, I suspect that the outcry from the public (looking at the pictures of this adorable little guy) will create the pressure to win the goodhearted soul who saved him a pass.

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 3:01 am**

No. No one here likes bleeding hearts fucking around with wildlife because they THINK that is the right thing to do. The massive amount of scientific evidence shows that it is not.

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 3:23 am**

As Jim said, wildlife was already fucked around with when the mother got killed by a car.

You're telling me there's no humane alternative for her baby other than euthanizing it? No wildlife preserve or such similar place where it can grow under supervision?

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 3:33 am**

It needs a pouch to develop.

After about 190 days, the baby (called a joey) is sufficiently large and developed to make its full emergence out of the pouch, after sticking its head out for a few weeks until it eventually feels safe enough to fully emerge. From then on, it spends increasing time in the outside world and eventually, after about 235 days, it leaves the pouch for the last time

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 3:52 am**

And what is the bet that this woman has no access to the proper keeping environments for the animal in the first place.

A Roo does NOT live in a backyard. They are wild animals and not bred for captivity.

After ten years of seeing what a mess these bleeding heart carers made when raising native injured wildlife inappropriately, I have come to see why some rules have been instituted.

Hell, I might just bring the article to the attention of my old colleagues in the Victorian Government and ask whether she has sort appropriate permissions to do what she is doing. I probably won't, but rarely has any good been achieved from the false notion that it was in the animals best interest to have been resuscitated in such circumstances.

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 4:10 am**

It needs a pouch to develop.

Ideally that's probably the case, but it seems to be coming along quite nicely. Looks like the lady knows what she's doing.

They are wild animals and not bred for captivity.

That's funny....

I could swear I see a whole bunch of them hopping around quite contentedly every time I visit the SF Zoo....

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 4:17 am**

Does she have access to that amount of land? most people with land here have swarms of them and would not appreciate another added to the mix.

A wildlife sanctuary would be the most appropriate place to go. One can only hope that that would be her intention. It usually is not and then by the time anyone intervenes she has totally fucked the animal by not having at least tried to maintain appropriate boundaries. "Carers", like her, should be putted as a blight in the Care Society.

She is a total numpty

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 4:19 am**

This seems to be saying that it is only necessary to euthanize if the animal is not viable. This list of instructions suggests it is quite possible to raise such animals by hand, and this says that hand-raised kangaroo joeys can be released into the wild after about 18 months.

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 4:37 am**

Yes, However, we are talking about hairless joeys, or pinkies, not joeys. Show me any text on raising the hairless.

Joeys ARE allowed to be cared for. Pinkies are not.

You don't think I would have made such a fundamental error as that, surely. Re- read what I have written instead.

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 4:44 am**

Lord Jim wrote:
They are wild animals and not bred for captivity.
That's funny....

I could swear I see a whole bunch of them hopping around quite contentedly every time I visit the SF Zoo....

Yes, San Fran where the roos roam wild...

I think that you know full well that Hen was referring to Australia Jim...

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 4:57 am**

Gob wrote:By "pinkies" I take it you mean Joeys that are not ready for life outside the pouch?

Otherwise known as Tarantula food. My [hand sized] Chilean Rosehair used to enjoy an occasional "Pinkie" to break up her diet of Jumbo crickets.

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 4:59 am**

Tastes like chicken, does it?

Posted: **Sat May 28, 2011 5:38 am**

They make wonderful shoes. The best cycling shoes I ever had were kangaroo hide.

yrs,
rubato

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