REHABILITATING JOEYS

By Claudette Vaughan

Director of Help for Wildlife, Denise Garratt speaks to the Abolitionist-Online about the love of her life: rehabilitating traumatised joeys. * This Interview is dedicated to Arthur Queripel, the founder of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council.

Abolitionist:  How difficult is rehabilitating traumatised kangaroos?

Denise: It takes over your life. It's a 24-hour job and it's the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life especially caring for the joeys. I've been caring for joeys for over 25 years now.  During that time out of all the kangaroos I've had in my charge –the healthy ones and the injured ones and the little lost souls that have given up on life – there's so much sadness in it but all the time what shines through with these joeys is the most spiritual feeling that comes with these babies. It's just an enormous privilege just to be able to be with them let alone have the responsibility to help them grow and teaching them and helping them become aware of the environment of each other and to get them back out into the wild as free kangaroos.

Abolitionist:   I'm guessing you have seen some things over the years.

Denise: Too many. Sometimes I wish I could write a book on this. It would show people the uniqueness and specialness of these creatures. They are magic. It's a magical thing to see the world through their eyes. Each and every one of those critters that come into my care teaches me something new. It's been a growing process for me as a human being.

They teach me. The stories and encounters I've had from the littlies and even from the big injured adult kangaroos should be captured in a book. I've just finished caring for a mother kangaroo. It took me 3 months to get her up on her feet. I had to teach her to stand up again and hop again. She's just been released. We had the most incredible bond. From the first minute this wild kangaroo came into my care she was in agony, traumatised and in a terrible state-she reached up and licked my face.  For the next 3 months I washed her and cared for her. She had been found on a fence and had what's called similar to muscular dystrophy. In short, she was crippled. She couldn't move. She was flyblown and covered in maggots. On top of that she had the most horrific wound on her lower leg and the bone was exposed by about 8 inches. I brought her into care and cleaned her up. I rinsed her in lavender water. I wanted to be close to her as I knew I'd have to be with her 24 hours a day. We put her in a fly-proof tent on my lawn and set her up comfortably. I played with her and slept with her. I have to turn her every 2 hours. Enormous amounts of physio therapy went into her and also we used a tents machine which is usually reserved for people.

Help for Wildlife has been operating for 12 years now and we always stretch the boundaries. We're always looking for something to do to help these critters with and she responded beautifully. Her wounds healed after specialists treated her on this one as her wounds were very bad. Over time and very slowly, she healed. She put on weight and she got stronger. When we treat our kangaroos we treat the whole animal whether they are babies or adult ones. We treat them wholistically. She was comfortable with good food. She was safe and secure and she healed. Three months later I sat on the side of the road and I looked at her sitting on top of a hill sitting in the sun after a cold morning. She looked at me and I looked at her and I thought to myself, “That's what it's all about”. It was a long, long road for both of us. Many, many sleepless nights but we both made it.

Abolitionist: Do you see many kangaroos that have been shot in the Outback or shot in the suburbs?

Denise: A shooter rang me up not that long ago. He was out in the country and had shot the mother for dogfood and had thrown the joey away. The joey was a tiny little thing that was in a pouch. It did have hair but it was very wobbly on it's legs. Now this was a very hardened shooter and the joey was on the side of the dam crying out for its mother and for some reason this shooter had a change of heart and we went over and picked the little one up. He didn't know what to feed her with but he did have long-life milk which by the way we never feed them with. He looked around for how he could feed her and he had one of those plastic moneybags. He snipped the corner of the moneybag off and filled it up with milk and fed this little one for 2 weeks while he was out in the bush and brought her back to Melbourne.

They called me to come out to their property. When I got there this poor little joey who had been in her mother's pouch was tied up by a lead and a chain next door to their dog. Because these little joeys are so sensitive she was frozen, just frozen. That one didn't want to live. It took a long, long time to get her right again. She's been released now but for a long time she didn't want to be a part of this world.

Abolitionist:   In a speciesistic world it's good to hear you talking in terms of joeys and adult kangaroos being psychologically traumatised by events around them as it shows that she more than just her body for meat.

Denise: That's the whole secret of raising a kangaroo is to have them psychologically equipped to deal with things. They don't make pets. It's a tragedy to see people even thinking of making them “their” pet. They are wild creatures. They took thousands of years to wild and all of a sudden they look cute, they look wonderful and they are very loving but they are not keyed up to be someone's pet. They belong in the wild.

Abolitionist:   I'd like to ask you about the push in Australia for the commercialisation and utilisation of our wildlife especially thinking of terms of the kangaroo.

Denise: Each and everyone of us has the responsibility to care for our wildlife and above all respect it and I don't see this in the push for the commercialisation of the kangaroo.

What we do need to do is start concentrating on teaching our children and teaching people how to learn to live and respect our unique Australian wildlife.

Abolitionist:   The Kangaroo Industry is pushing for kangaroo farming as an alternative to sheep farming. What do you think?

Denise: It will never work principally because kangaroos are wild creatures. They move around a lot. They are territorial and they are very bonded to that territory. Most zoos and sanctuaries and fauna parks have problems with kangaroo health when they are kept in those conditions because they are eating over felled ground. Kangaroos are not geared up for that. They have very delicate systems and they pick up a lot of diseases and bacteria from dirty ground. Probably of all the wildlife in Australia, the Eastern Greys in particular stress more than any other animal.

Abolitionist:   What about the Big Reds? There are hardly any left.

Denise: If Big Red's are male and tame they can get very, very dangerous because they have no fear of people. I have seen that with hand-raised Red males. The Red females are alittle tougher but again it's not possible to fence in an animal that was never meant to be fenced in. They are free animals. It's like keeping a bird in a cage. But even then, I think a bird would survive better than a kangaroo will.

Abolitionist:   Do you think the solution to all the problems the kangaroo faces is to set up a NGO to monitor and record the uniqueness of these animals and to find solutions on how better live with them?

Denise: We have to be accountable to manage our kangaroo in a respectful manner. The other thing too is changing people's mindsets. I had to send out one of my carers the other day to a group of kangaroos lying on the road. One male and one female. They are very protective of their families. She had a joey in her pouch and a young one at foot. Someone had come along that road and hit them. Every one of them was injured and this person kept driving. My carer had to come along and euthanase every one of that family down.

Abolitionist:   What advise would you give our readers about the kangaroo?

Denise:   Learn to respect and cherish the kangaroo.

Donations can be made to:

Denise Garratt, Director

Help For Wildlife,
P O Box 181, Coldstream
VIC 3770

Phone: 0417 380 687. Or contact us here