KANGAROO TEACHES CORE TRUTH OF PREVENTIVE
SYSTEM
'Grigio' rides again!
MELBOURNE: 23rd September -- This is a 'human
interest' rather than a news story, but it's well worth a read! The
Melbourne 'Age' and the BBC (with trivially divergent details, one could add)
ran a story yesterday that may affirm what we already know about the power of
personal affection:
In a scene straight out of Skippy (TV series), a
one-eyed pet kangaroo, uncharacteristically barking like a dog, called a
stricken family member to the attention of the others, probably saving his life
by doing so. Len Richards, a farmer, had been struck on the head and
knocked unconscious by a falling tree branch when he went out to check on
the tree about 300 metres from his farmhouse. 'Lulu', the pet kangaroo,
had been found some ten years before as a joey in her mother's pouch, after a
car accident which had killed the mother. 'Lulu' was raised lovingly by
the family and has been particularly devoted to the farmer himself, following
him everywhere he goes.
"She was making this noise which sounded like a dog
barking and she was obviously trying to get our attention because she never acts
like that" said Mr. Richard's 17-year-old daughter Celeste.
RSPCA president Dr. Hugh Wirth is urging the family
to nominate Lulu for an RSPCA National Bravery Award,
"I have never heard of a wild kangaroo doing
anything helpful to a human, so some kind of trusting relationship with this
kangaroo and the family must have developed over the years", he
said.
We might note that Lulu is a 'Western Grey' a
well-known breed, normally wild, throughout Australia. In this regard,
then, she could have been rightly called 'Grigio'
.....
