Cynics Unlimited

Since childhood, kangaroos have always fascinated me. Their majestic leaps and bounds through the desert, the female’s built-in pouch, and the tiny newborn baby’s (called the joey) ability to crawl up the mother’s belly and onto her teat strike me as almost miraculous. I’ve even nicknamed my infant daughter the joey because like a young kangaroo she’s always at the breast and because I carry her in a “pouch” (Baby Bjorn). So imagine my excitement when I discovered a website called Roo Gully (http://members.iinet.net.au/~roogully/).

Roo Gully is a wildlife sanctuary located in southwestern Australia near the town of Boyup Brook (nearest major city: Perth). There sick, injured or orphaned kangaroos and other animals are cared for by Carol Lander, an Englishwoman who runs the place. She in turn is assisted by two veterinarians on call and by a team of veterinary students from all around the world who volunteer their services and gain experience in their career. Once the animals recover or, in the case of orphans, mature, they are released back into the wild or provided with an environment at Roo Gully as similar as possible to their natural habitat. Roo Gully also holds organized tours and visits by schools and other groups.

Ms. Lander has chronicled her work at Roo Gully in a series called The Roo Gully Diaries, which received a finalist’s award from the New York Festivals. You can buy the DVD of the series at http://members.iinet.net.au/~roogully/Productions/RooGullyDiaries1.htm#DVD. Alternately you can watch the kangaroos of Roo Gully on Youtube at http://au.youtube.com/RooGully.

The Roo Gully Youtube series tells in 22 episodes the story of two female Western Grey kangaroos, Sadie and Katie, and their daughters, Wattle and Tingle. The series begins with Katie giving birth to Tingle. Contrary to what many believe, kangaroos do feel labour pains, despite the small size of the joey (I suspect the person who said they didn’t was a man). Lander then follows Tingle and Sadie’s baby Wattle as they grow in the pouch. At birth the joeys are very tiny, almost embryonic, and for the first few months they remain attached to their mother’s teat at all times. But even then some significant developments take place. For example, at around seven weeks the joey’s gender can be determined by the presence or absence of a pouch (females have one; males do not). Because Wattle and Tingle have this telltale dimple on their abdomens, we know immediately that they are both girls.

At about five and a half months the joeys open their eyes. Though they don’t venture out of the pouch just yet, as they get bigger they begin poking their little heads outside for a glimpse of the world around them. Perhaps the most important point in the joey’s early life occurs at nearly nine months. It is during this period that he or she jumps out of the pouch and hops around for the very first time. He or she is then at the same stage of development a placental mammal would be at birth, so the joey is said to be “born again.” Now that my daughter has started walking, I joke that she’s not a born-again Christian – we’re Lutheran, a fairly staid run-of-the-mill church – but she is a born-again joey.

Joeys become more independent – learning to eat grass, bouncing around playing with their friends, and so on – but they still depend on their moms to a great extent. We see how if the mother senses danger, she “calls” to her joey and the joey rushes back and tumbles into the pouch. Interestingly, even when the joey gets to be really large the pouch can still stretch to hold him or her – there is a very amusing clip of Wattle literally diving and disappearing completely into Sadie’s pouch. The mother can also tighten the muscles of the pouch to prevent the baby from coming in as well as “seal” the opening to keep the joey in place as she jumps.

The Roo Gully series has elements of the cute (joeys peeping out of the pouch), the funny (Sadie trying in vain to rest while Wattle nips at her ear) and the sad (Sadie’s second baby, a boy, dying an hour after birth). On the website of Roo Gully you can also find information about other kangaroos Ms. Lander has cared for. One fascinating story has to do with two female kangaroos, Heidi and Rosie, who gave birth at the same time. When Rosie became sick and died all of a sudden, Heidi adopted Rosie’s daughter Bracken and raised her as her own, even nursing her from the pouch. This was quite an extraordinary event because scientists had never believed that adoption occurred among kangaroos.

So please have a look at the website of Roo Gully. You can even adopt your own kangaroo (this operates something like Plan Canada or Save the Children for human youngsters, where you sponsor a kangaroo and receive information about his or her progress). Or if you’re not able to make such a long-term commitment, consider a one-time donation to Roo Gully. Certainly these beautiful animals, and Carol Lander’s valuable work with them, deserve our support.