Awesome Animals (2020) s01e06 Episode Script

1
Few sights are as
mind-boggling as the kangaroo.
Sometimes, strangely human.
Sometimes, unlike anything on Earth.
Born the size of a peanut,
growing up in a pouch,
the roo emerges, inelegant and gangly,
to become one of the most graceful,
powerful,
and successful of animals.
There are so many of them
on the roads,
in the fields, in backyards,
and at times even attacking people,
that some think Australia's national icon
is actually the national menace.
Now, a seaside golf course
has become a laboratory
for kangaroo baby-making.
It provides us with an intimate glimpse
into what lies behind the
animal's population explosion
in the land down under.
In the dream time, they say,
the first kangaroo went around
on four legs like a dog.
Then, one day,
he saw people dancing,
and was so amazed,
he stood up.
And was forever after fated
to live his amazing, upright life.
Massive, chiseled and driven to dominate,
the kangaroo has slugged, kicked,
and hopped its way to dominate
some of the toughest terrain in the world.
Roughly 60 million kangaroos
live in Australia,
outnumbering people
at more than two to one.
When we think of kangaroos,
the famed big red often comes to mind,
standing nearly seven feet tall,
living in the dry, dusty Outback.
But the roos and their marsupial cousins
are actually everywhere.
Some live on cliffs.
Others in trees.
The smallest roos live in burrows.
And then, on the southeastern
coast of Australia,
in the state of Victoria,
some very special kangaroos
aspire to live a more luxurious life.
Welcome to Anglesea Country Club,
where life for the eastern gray
kangaroo is simply heavenly.
Perfectly manicured fields for grazing,
life without predators,
and little to disturb them,
aside from the occasional
incoming golf ball.
The roo is the king of the course
with little care to anything around it.
But life among humans
isn't always a picnic.
With 60 million roos in the country,
they're spilling out into roads and yards,
and running into trouble with people.
That's why Anglesea Country Club
has instituted a dress code,
specifically for roos.
Color-coded ear tags
and over-sized name tags
keep tabs on the roos,
examining how they've multiplied so fast
and how they can be controlled.
This is for the safety of the animals
as well as the people around them.
So roos like Jinx, Fergi and Noah,
are giving us a glimpse into
the secret lives of urban kangaroos.
Both the good
and the bad.
A lone joey,
too young to be out of the pouch,
is spotted on the golf course.
His mother is nowhere in sight.
Good afternoon, wild life rescue.
That's where the roo whisperer comes in.
David Burrell, of Leopold Wildlife Rescue,
gets the call from his wife, Helen.
The two of them have been
rescuing kangaroos in distress
for over 20 years.
Wild life rescue.
Yeah, hi.
I have to send you to Anglesea.
They've got a little pinky joey
on the golf course all on his own.
Is there anybody down there
waiting with the animal or ?
- No.
- No.
The quicker you can get down there
before it gets too cold.
He's got no fur, this little one.
He's not gonna survive
for very long at all being on his own.
Cold last night; we were
down to three degrees,
but if we get down there before dark,
we could beat the foxes to him.
First, he has to find the little thing.
You're in here somewhere.
Mum would have turfed him.
He could have rolled under.
This is the sort of shrub--
The branches come up,
but it's quite easy
for them to roll under here.
Ah, there you are, you little fella.
Come on, come to me.
Up we get. That's a boy. Good man.
Come on, pop you up my shirt.
This seven-month-old joey
is far too young
to survive on his own.
His fur, like peach fuzz,
has just started to grow.
Good man.
David coaxes him
into a substitute pouch
and bundles him into the truck.
It's time to take him home,
where the little guy may have
a fighting chance to survive.
And this is home,
where orphaned kangaroos
rule the roost.
Oh, good boy, Bye-bye.
And find a substitute mom
in the form of Helen Burrell.
He's on four-hour liquid foods.
Spent many
a sleepless night with this one.
We didn't think she was gonna make it.
No, well hopefully
Helen and David
have made their home
a haven for Australia's
orphaned and injured wildlife.
Oh, he's clucking.
A cloth pouch, held at the right height,
proves irresistible.
Well, we picked the national parks.
As does a bottle of baby formula.
Okay, Beau, it's time to stand up
now you've had your drink.
Oh, good boy. He's off.
The little joey, Beau,
is just sucking up every
bit of comfort and care.
But he's still not quite ready
to be off on his own.
He shouldn't have
been out of the pouch.
It was freezing cold.
He would have died had
we not got the call.
We have to be aware also
that he may be sick.
It may be something we can't visually see.
Sometimes if a mum knows
there's something wrong with their baby,
they'll throw it and start again.
Beau is one lucky guy.
Kangaroos face few natural predators.
But a lone joey equals
fast food for a hungry fox.
And in the more remote areas of Australia,
he would have had to contend with
the most infamous
kangaroo killer of them all
the dingo.
Probably more closely related
to dogs than wolves,
dingoes still lead a wolf-like lifestyle,
stalking their prey,
and trying to remain undetected.
But they're up against the
roo's incredible hearing,
and ears that can scan
360 degrees around them.
It's hard for even a dingo
to go undetected.
And his cover is blown.
Without hesitating, the roo hightails it.
The chase is a biological
match-up to marvel at.
The hop
versus the run.
Both animals have similar top speeds,
35 miles per hour,
but how they reach those
speeds is completely different.
The hop is a strange,
but surprisingly efficient
form of transport.
As the roo picks up speed,
the energy it uses barely increases
until it reaches a cruising speed
of about 20 miles per hour.
The canines, however,
have to use more and more energy
the faster they go.
The kangaroo's secret lies
in its mind-boggling anatomy.
Their leg muscles are extremely powerful,
but it's the network of tendons
that stretch down its legs
that propel the animals so efficiently.
Their legs are basically giant springs,
stretching when the roo's feet
hit the ground,
and snapping back as it launches,
making the most of the
elastic energy in the tendons.
End result?
A leap that can stretch over 30 feet.
If the canines don't catch
the kangaroo swiftly,
there's no chance of success.
They know this,
and quickly give up the chase.
In many regions, the gray and red big roos
have simply become too successful
and for some, are crossing the line
from abundance to menace.
Thousands of roos die
on the highways each year,
and accidents take human lives, too.
When scared,
their lethal claws and powerful limbs
can deliver devastating blows.
And then,
there are the troublesome bachelors.
Across the continent,
splinter groups of rebel males
wander off from their main mob in winter.
They're swinging singles.
But come spring, they'll return
to make their move on the ladies.
Australia's love-hate relationship
with their marsupials
is nowhere more apparent than
when it comes to the gang.
Meet the boys:
a group of juvenile males
from the golf club mobs.
They're the rebels
who have ditched the club clique
to roam the town,
invading backyards,
junkyards,
and streets.
For this band of brothers,
an award-winning garden
is just another salad bar.
Pete is known as a
mellow man about town.
His buddy, Sav, is more of a bully.
The brawn to Pete's brains.
Amos, an arrogant bruiser,
simply tolerates their company.
After a winter of roaming the town,
Pete and his posse are pondering
a return to the golf club.
The Anglesea Golf Course is turning lush
with food once again.
And even more important, it's mating time.
Kangaroos are baby-making machines.
A pregnant female can keep another embryo
on hold inside of her,
nurse a tiny joey the size of a peanut
with high fat milk,
and also nurse a big joey
with a completely
different type of milk
all at the same time.
Some kangaroos can be
perpetually pregnant.
The kangaroo's reproductive success
has helped their populations
explode in the wild.
They multiply freely and help themselves
to any and all appealing grazing lands.
With the ability to leap
up to six feet in the air,
sometimes higher,
there's little to stop them
from feasting on farms and ranches.
Desperate landowners
sometimes trap and shoot them,
even though professional culling
is against the law in these parts.
But there are still plenty of other things
that can bring a kangaroo down.
And right now, there's a doe
in deep trouble on this ranch.
Ellie, come on, come on, come on.
Rancher Alan Roberts
is a lot more open-minded than most
when it comes to having
kangaroos on his land.
They compete with his livestock for food,
but he figures there's
plenty to go around.
We do have a lot of roos on the property,
and they do a bit of damage
to the fences and so forth,
but it is nice to see them around.
On his rounds,
he's noticed that a doe
has something wrong with her eye.
Time to call in the roo whisperer.
The Burrells appreciate that Roberts
looks after his kangaroos
instead of harassing them.
- David. How are you?
- Hi, David.
- Pleased to meet you.
- Please to meet you.
- My wife Helen.
- Hi, Helen.
- Hi.
- Good to see you. Yeah.
You've got an
injured roo on the property?
Yeah, she's been
hanging round the house for a few days.
Grown quite fond of her and that,
but, uh, she's got a terrible eye.
It's weeping badly, yeah.
David, the whisperer,
will be the one to approach
the spooked female.
The first thing we ask ourselves,
does this animal need rescuing?
Second question, can I do it safely
without damaging myself or the animal?
I mean, we're dealing with large animals
that would have no
problem in killing a human
if they were in an aggressive mood.
That's a girl, good girl.
That's a girl.
- That's a girl, shake hands.
- Oddly enough,
roos can't hop backwards.
Good girl. There we go.
So when the scared roo swats at David,
David knows to grab her hands,
so she won't be able to rear up
on her tail and kick him.
Good girl. Up we come.
Good girl. Nice and calm, mate.
It's a tricky technique,
but quick and effective.
Not a bad weight.
We'll get her up here
and we'll lay her down
and get a look at that eye
and see what we can do to
to help her out.
The eye's gone.
It's still there, but it can't be saved.
So
We'll, uh
We'll have to have that eye removed.
No reason why she can't
survive just fine with one eye.
Oh, darling. It's okay.
They bundle her into a bag
for the return to their haven
for lost and damaged roos.
Doctor there.
We have her.
Good girl.
You did the right thing calling for help.
She couldn't defend herself
or get away from a fox
- or a couple of wild dogs.
- Nah.
She would have been struggling.
Yeah.
Good job, Hel.
Aerial population counts put kangaroos
in the tens of millions
here in Eastern Australia.
In Western Australia,
where gray kangaroos
number over a million,
culling is big business.
Here, roos love snacking
on farmer's crops,
which causes plenty of problems.
Sometimes, kangaroos can
prove to be too much trouble
for farmers and ranchers.
When they've run out of options,
they call in Jason Rutter,
Vice President of the Professional
Shooters Association
of Western Australia.
He has been dispatching
kangaroos commercially for 11 years.
Yeah,
just from prior experience, I'd imagine
you'd probably have an excess of about
80 to 100 roos on this particular area.
Jason is on his way
to meet a farmer named Dean Sinclair.
Uh, Jason, you know,
we seem to be getting more and more roos
at, uh, this time of year.
He grows barley, but these days,
his barley is simply a free feast
for the western grays.
Hey, good day, Dean.
How are you, mate?
Hey, Jason.
- Good to meet you, mate.
- Good to meet you, too.
When the men survey the fields,
the damage done by kangaroos is shocking.
I see you've got a lot of damage here.
In a paddock like this,
this should be a 3,000 kilo crop.
A three ton crop.
If I get 100 kilos off this paddock here,
I'll be doing very well.
Basically, it's just a waste
of time even cropping it.
They're a marvelous animal,
but there's too many of them.
While professional cullers
like Jason Rutter
work to diminish roo populations,
the Burrells are busy
doing the exact opposite.
They were able to save
the doe's eye after all.
And she is living large.
She's recovered well from
the initial injury to the eye.
So from that side of it, she's doing well.
It's hard to believe
that something that size
is enough to take down a kangaroo.
Now comes the most satisfying,
but heart-wrenching part
of David and Helen's work.
It's time for their doe to hop the nest.
David brings his precious cargo
back to the ranch where she was rescued.
Oh, that's a girl.
Yes, mate, come on.
Back on familiar terrain,
among her native mob,
her chances are good,
and her stint in roo rehab
will soon be a distant memory.
Settle, settle.
Yes, I know you can smell
all the familiar smells, can't you?
You have been an absolute pleasure
to look after, young lady.
There you go.
Hang on, hang on.
Let's have a quick look at you.
Come here, come here.
Good girl.
Good girl. All right.
Good girl.
It's a bittersweet moment,
but one the Burrells live for.
Well done, madam.
Well done. And that's what it's all about.
Capture them, rehabilitate them,
and the payoff,
without a shadow of a doubt,
is getting these guys back into the wild
where they belong.
Little Beau, though,
will still be hanging around
for a while longer.
He's growing fast, though.
From a scrawny, hairless,
and hapless orphan
to a confident, bossy roo.
Good boy, Beau.
Is this one yours?
Oh, good boy. Let's have some bottle.
Beau's been with us
a couple of months now.
And I believe he's doing very well.
He's very very alpha.
He likes to boss up the others,
and he's the smallest.
So, very brave for a little kangaroo.
But soon he'll return
to the Anglesea Country Club
where he was found.
Where, who knows?
Perhaps he'll take the fairways by storm.
Right now, though, his older cousins
in the roo rebel gang
have returned home to the greens
Watching
waiting
and ready to unleash a
season of kangaroo chaos.
The invasion has begun.
It's mating season,
and young males are
hopping out of backyards
and across suburban streets.
Big Sav sizes up the situation.
Amos does, too,
while sizing up Sav at the same time.
Finally, the gang spills onto the fairways
to attempt to woo the women.
Lean, hulking, and muscular,
Sav and Amos primp and flex
and show off their assets.
Amos is chasing anything with a pouch.
Sav is just learning
the ways of seduction.
And Noah's nerves are pretty obvious.
Kickboxing matches break out everywhere.
Across the entire green,
it's a showdown to win over females.
Amos ends up taking the back nine.
Sav grabs ownership of the front nine.
And all over Australia,
spring brings a frenzy of roo activity
and soon, another batch of joeys.
How they became the
biological marvels they are
is still a mystery.
But the results are clear.
They've slugged, kicked,
and hopped their way
to dominate some of the
toughest terrain in the world.
These are the roos.
From their reproductive success,
to their power and speed,
they truly are
awesome animals of the land down under.
♪♪
Captioned by Point.360