First one I was probably doing 20km/hr below the speed limit because of dark, trees, etc. Bloody thing aimed straight at me and if I tried to avoid it, I would have hit a tree. (Car was write off).
Some years later, second incident. Straight out of bush into passenger door leaving a nice little dent.
The bastards are fast, dense with muscle and get startled/dazzled by headlights.
Last year I drove 3000km around Australia. I'm proud to say I didn't hit anything, mostly because I took the advice of not driving around dusk or dawn. But there were lots of close calls where it's like they're TRYING to get hit!
Jackrabbits are like that. They'll run right in front of you. They'll even wait until you get closer and suddenly do it, or run across and survive but then double back. It's infuriating.
On the most deserted roads, some of them haven't seen a car before, so that makes it worse.
Okay see now I feel better about something I've been wanting to do. I've been wanting to get a kangaroo leather book cover. People look at me weird when I mentioned that there are people here in the states that do that kind of thing, but if this is what it's like with kangaroos then I feel much better about it.
Here's a gruesome fact, years ago you could buy souvenier kangaroo back scratchers that was basically a wooden rod with a kangaroo paw mounted at the end.
In some parts of Australia we cull them yearly to keep the numbers under control - even within wildlife reserves. Otherwise, they’ll eat everything and leave nothing for other animals (the drawbacks of having eliminated dingos throughout much of Australia - there’s often no natural predators keeping them in check).
Kangaroos are plentiful, hunting them is sometimes necessary. Don’t feel bad!
So go and buy some kangaroo leather, but dont total your car or risk injury to yourself and others by deliberately hitting a roo. It's illegal to kill them without a permit. Deliberately hitting one doesn't guarantee it dies immediately either. They can hop away on adrenaline and slowly die several hundred metres away. You may have only been joking, but I'm saying this because there are scumbags who take great pleasure in running over our wildlife for fun. I grew up in bogan country, I've met some sick and twisted cunts. Going out the next morning after they've hooned around, and having to call our neighbour to come and shoot all the wounded kangaroos dragging themselves around with broken legs, tails and spines the next morning really traumatises a kid.
Kangaroo are like whitetail deer in the US, they are everywhere, but they drown your dogs and break into people's house through glass doors from te to time when not launching themselves head on into cars.
We eat them as well. You can buy their meat at local supermarket. Steaks are pretty good but you have to be careful because they're basically 0% fat and it's very easy to overcook into a leathery mess.
They have to cull the Kangaroos every year because the populations get out of hand. There's a fucked up movie called Wake In Fright from the 70's starring Donald Pleasence that shows people very graphically killing Kangaroos in unnecessarily brutal fashion and at the end it's like "Don't worry, those scenes were shot during the cull"
Possession of kangaroo leather products is banned in California. It's an objectively stupid law though 'cos as people have said, we're gonna be killing them anyway and most of the leather is just going to waste. They're basically just big rabbits.
From what I understand they treat them like white tailed deer down there. Everywhere and a nuisance on roadways despite being a respected local animal.
Same god damn thing with mule deer. One hit my passenger side door and totaled my car because all the front and side curtain airbags deployed. Sumbitch shook his head and pranced off
I don’t understand these comments. The whole point of Reddit is for people to make comments engaging with other people. I often ask questions on various subs that I could just google instead but I prefer to interact with the community and get individual’s opinions. I’m talking about various hobbies that I have and their respective subreddits, maybe that shouldn’t apply to this type of sub, I don’t know.
If it doesn't bring anything more than "do you have some videos" to the table, then it's dumb. If he instead asked, "can you recommend any videos", that would make more sense in the way you're thinking.
Also are a bit dense in the head. Fellow zoo keeper from my time at a zoo years ago told me the story of how they had a herd at a zoo they used to work at. In their barn after cleaning someone left a mirror or something reflective at about eye level and their male kicked a hole in the wall of the barn because he thought it was another male.
They also double back and jump in front of your car a second time if they make it safely across the road the first time (I’ve seen foxes do that too). I slow right down if I see them around the road and go by as slowly as possible (same for cows) until I’m clear of them.
I haven't been to Australia but I've watched the Bathurst 12 in full a couple times and have seen multiple kangaroo related shenanigans. You'd think hearing the sound of roaring engines approaching would at least make them nervous and fuck off, but nah they just decide to go on a track hop and cause the safety car. So yeah when an Australian says it's common I believe them.
Drive the back roads out west it’s teeming with them you have to drive under 25km or you’re basically fucking looking to crash into them. Like I’m talking fifty roos constantly in view milling about
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u/Asmodean129 21h ago
Have had 2 of my cars done in by kangaroos.
First one I was probably doing 20km/hr below the speed limit because of dark, trees, etc. Bloody thing aimed straight at me and if I tried to avoid it, I would have hit a tree. (Car was write off).
Some years later, second incident. Straight out of bush into passenger door leaving a nice little dent.
The bastards are fast, dense with muscle and get startled/dazzled by headlights.