This
little pair of Swamp wallabies came in
10 days apart.
The first
one was as the result of the mother being chased by a dog, luckily
someone saw the joey and retrieved it. Someone going out to cut weeds
on his property found the second one. As he approached the offending
weed, he was surprised to hear an unfamiliar sound, it turned out
to be a little swamp wallaby hiding and calling loudly for his mother.
Even though
he was only just getting his fur he was not about to be caught by
this strange creature. So he took off at a most surprising speed under
scrub with our human rescuer in hot pursuit, at this stage on all
fours. Being a fair bit bigger than our little wallaby, he was not
quite as able to get through the scrub, but determined not to loose
sight of the little fellow he heroically kept going and eventually
succeeded in catching our little orphan.
When I received the little fellow he was very stressed and very dehydrated
imagine he would have been under the bush for the day and possibly
from the previous night, but after rehydrating him and getting him
warm, he settled in. It didn't take many days before the two little
ones hopped in together, and have since been inseparable. One wonders
how he got separated from his mother, the most obvious would be yet
another dog chase.
We all like to have the company and the security of owning a dog,
especially if one lives out in the countryside. I see nothing wrong
with that, but if you live in the country, PLEASE be a responsible
dog owner and keep your dog in at night (the dog will love it) or
make sure it is on a secure chain, or inside a fenced off area.
As wildlife carers we often hear the distraught owners of dogs and
cats make the same statement, "but I never thought the dog or
cat would do it'. The nature of the animal is to hunt, no matter how
well fed it may be, it is still the instinct that will win when the
situation arises. Your dog may be asleep when you go to bed and when
you wake up in the morning it is still in the same place fast-asleep,
but how do you know what it got up to in the early hours of the morning?
It is quite amazing the distance they can cover in a very short time,
they may even join a pack of other domestic dogs out on a night run.
It was
thought the wallabies "threw" the joey in order to gain
speed when chased it is now thought that it may in fact be accidental
that the joey is lost in cases like this. If a wallaby is relaxed
and at ease, it will relax the pouch for the joey to possibly graze
on the grass etc. or hop out whilst mum is resting. If at this stage
the wallaby is startled by the appearance of a dog, she will automatically
take off, and in that case the joey is left behind. If the joey has
its head out the pouch and the pouch is relaxed it may simply "fall
out". In both cases it spells death for the joey.
The responsibility
rests with us that live in the country where these animals have lived
well before our arrival, to ensure that they are still able to survive
in the future.