Our very own roos on the telly

Rollersk8r said :

They laid it on a tad thick, don’t you think?? Aside from “humanising” the roos with names, (snip) Anyone would think they were talking about the last panda!

Anyone who hangs around roos gets to see that they are very interesting animals, with distinct characters and a very organised social system. It’s interesting to watch how they form into groups, and how the groupings change… you see injured animals and how they deal with that, you see the old males and how they deal with their changed status. The young ones, especially the boys, can be hilarious but they’re less funny as young adults especially if you encounter them in spring, full of testosterone and attitude.

It’s what people do, give names to things and creatures, to identify them. The ACT Parks people who were studying the roos seemed to be smart and doing a good job, they clearly cared, and through their work were also looking for solutions so that ways could be found for the roos to live in proximity to Canberra.

I must say I am exasperated when people want roos put down because they are worried about crashing into them with their cars… slow the flap down people, it’s that simple.

They laid it on a tad thick, don’t you think?? Aside from “humanising” the roos with names, I think the defining line of the doco was describing a key threat as being hit by drunks speeding home from the pub. Oh yes, we’re all speeding drunks in Canberra! You’re unlikely to hit a roo sober, or obeying the speed limit…

Anyone would think they were talking about the last panda!

EvanJames said :

Bad Seed said :

Really enjoyed this – this mob lived out the back of my place and I actually recognised the one they called Black Spot – he was a regular around the neighbourhood. Was interesting to hear how some of them had earned some basic “street smarts”

Black Spot’s end was sad, I’ve had a few big old male roos liek that around my place, kicked out of their job as top roo, stiff and hopping shortly. It beats me how people see roos near the road, and don’t slow down. See one, there’s others about.

it was a really interesting doco. almost like a roo version of meerkat manor 🙂 i was saddening by black spot’s demise and shocked by the method of killing joeys during the cull 🙁 other people here probably already knew about this but i guess i didn’t pay enough attention to the cull at the time. couldn’t they have rounded them up and relocated them somewhere else??

Bad Seed said :

Really enjoyed this – this mob lived out the back of my place and I actually recognised the one they called Black Spot – he was a regular around the neighbourhood. Was interesting to hear how some of them had earned some basic “street smarts”

Black Spot’s end was sad, I’ve had a few big old male roos liek that around my place, kicked out of their job as top roo, stiff and hopping shortly. It beats me how people see roos near the road, and don’t slow down. See one, there’s others about.

I had an old roo living in the wild end of my back yard in Ainslie for a couple of years – it hopped past my bedroom window every night on his way out, then back before dawn to shelter from dogs I guess. I loved having him there. He just hung out among the forsythia all day.

Really enjoyed this – this mob lived out the back of my place and I actually recognised the one they called Black Spot – he was a regular around the neighbourhood. Was interesting to hear how some of them had earned some basic “street smarts”

astrojax said :

tiny pouch bound Alice

she has a tiny pouch and is bound – what sort of sick documentary is this..? oh, pouch-bound…

i always wonder at these docos how they know the animals’ names? did skippy tell them?

Also “mischievous Sonny”.

I’ve always wondered how TV producers decide when an animal’s behaviour is abnormal and needs to be described in anthropomorphic terms instead.

As a full time motorcycle rider this terrifies me.

About 9 years ago, during the drought, a large grey male kangaroo hopped in from another garden after being startled by a dog. It hopped right up to our sliding glass backdoor, and just stood there for ages, staring in at the kids who were sitting on the floor watching telly, almost like it was considering if it wanted to eat them. ( I suspect it was really deciding whether or not to have a kick fight with its own reflection.) I opened a side gate and it hopped off gracefully across the street into the grasslands and nature reserve over the road. I see them over there quite often, fighting each other in the pre-dawn mist. Then I wonder “Why am I not in bed asleep right now…”

I believe this has been already shown on American TV- although the slant of the promo highlights a completely different angle…

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/kangaroo-mob/introduction/7441/