Australians - do kangaroos bound in to your towns and cities and cause havoc? ?

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vyxen

i live in a country town. We have them come in every now and then, at some of the golf courses and on the hospital grounds and the loading yards at the industrial estate. They come out at night usually and just graze on the grass. No biggie, but they do occasionally jump onto the road and get hit. But then the ones at the hospital grounds are pretty timid.
They get spooked by the cars so they dont go near them much, humans spook them a bit. They bound in, eat then leave. No biggie. We dont really have a "roo detering system", except maybe the trucks that dont brake for anything.
When they overpopulate they usually bring in roo culling, take your best mate, your ute and a gun and go nuts really. Thats probably the only problem we have.

Future Eagles Mummy!!

Yesssss.... Kangaroos tavel in packs terrorising those who get in their way....

hahahahaha you people out there crack me up!! Actualy, in perth there are still pockets of kangaroo populations in the suburbs. I have seen the (very)occasssional on on the freeway after having a meeting with a car. We have several parkland areas close to the city where kangaroos still roam free. When you venture out into the country towns, there are obviously more of them. They pose a hazard to drivers as they get spooked by car headlights and just jump in any direction. They can do some pretty major damage to your car.

Kangaroos will pretty much jump away if you try to approach them so they really are not a problem. As a child, we had a few as pets after rescuing them from the pouches of their mothers after being hit by a car. They are truly beautiful, unique animals.

Jemma K

Oh yes, watch out for those kangaroos!
Not in most of the major cities, apparantly not many people in Australia have seen wild kangaroos except if they're dead on the side of the road.
I live in Canberra (The capital of Australia) and have seen heaps, they're everywhere. That big controversy that made international headlines about having a roo cull was here in Canberra.
I have had them down my street if its been raining and the grass is green.
They aren't dangerous really (unless you hit them with your car or are agressive to a male) usually they just bound away.

camocm

I live in South Australia, in a metropolitan suburb only about 15km from the Adelaide CBD and we often get kangaroos around our place because we live near to some bushland. They don't harass people or cause any trouble and if they are on the roads people usually stop and try to shoo them away back into the bushland.

Jim S

Everyone else has told you that they aren't in the cities.

I don't know if this analogy is helpful. I have sometimes come accross mobs of kangaroos so thick on the roads that I have had to drive in and around them the way you would with a mob of sheep on the road.

One night, nearly 30 years ago, I ran into 6 kangaroos in one night. Not little things you see in most zoos but 6 foot tall western red kangaroos. My car was nearly written off.

You wanted to know how to deter them.

For cars, we have
- Shu Roo, which is electrically powered and sends a piercing sound ahead of the car that is too high pitched for humans to hear but will supposedly annoy a kangaroo and drive it off the road.
- Whistles. They are small black things that attach to the bumper bar and do the same job as a shu roo except that they only work while the car is moving because they work by air flowing through them
- Bull bar, smart bar, kangaroo bar. There are many types of bars that people will install on the front of their car so thay can drive into a kangaroo without damaging their car.

As someone else said, they are culled when the populations get too great. Before you get all sentimental and think this is a bad thing, consider this, the kangaroos increase to plague proportions because of human activity providing an easy source of food.

Regards; Jim Sibbick

C.C

Don't know where you are from but that is a common misconception about Australia. We see allot of them on the outskirts of town and in rural areas but not in major cities. Spread the word, they are not everywhere you look!

zafir

In most towns and cities you will never, ever see a kangaroo in the streets. So the answer for the majority of Australians is - no, they don't bound around the streets and cause havoc.

But in a city like Canberra (the national capital by the way), which is comprised of a number satellite towns with a few kms of bush parkland between, you do occasionally see kangaroos in the suburbs.

I live in a suburb 2kms away from a bush area in Canberra, and in the last 10 years have seen a few kangaroos that have taken a wrong turn, and ended up in the suburbs in a panic. The unfortunate thing is that they move fast, are difficult to catch, and generally end up being hit by a car. Driving on the main roads around Canberra can often be a problem at dawn and dusk when kangaroos are crossing the roads to get to better grazing..

JEN10

Depends were you live in perth you wont see a kangaroo because development has sent them up north

When driving up to exmouth we had to get off the road at night because hundreds or kangaroos jump about but there is only a long road until you hit another small town so there arent a problem. When we got to exmouth we saw the odd kangaroo but there were a few local emus chilling in our back yard. For anyone coming to australia, perth i suggest to go up to exmouth best snorkelling and beaches there! i loved it! I also came back a completely different colour!

Mrs Ed

Not really. They live in the bushland areas mainly and don't' really like much noise. In a city area, you wont see one unless you live near a national park or something. In other towns outside the city, it can be fairly common to come across a kangaroo on Golf courses, camping and picnic areas and along roads where there is bushland nearby. You may get one or two that will venture in a bit further, but they're not really a huge problem.

Shadow hunter

Where I come from you see them on the outskirts of town. Not in the main street or anything but not far from it. Population is roughly 10,000. They do cause havoc at the local airport (very small airstrip) preventing light planes from landing but airport staff just chase them away first. A big fence is being built to keep them out.

RaNDoM

LOL! No they dont haha kangaroo's live in the bush sometimes u will drive along a dirt road and 1 will jump out but depends on wat kna car ure driving wether it will be hurt or not..... some peoples cars have HUGE dents in em and the kangaroos arent even hurt g/l mate put in some more stupidly random questions for me =]

Liz

No, they don't. Well, they don't in city towns, which is where 85% of the population live. They will hop around in your backyard and such if you live somewhere deserted or on some little coastal town, but they rarely do more than eat food scraps and have a nap. The thing you have to watch out for is kangaroos jumping in front of your car. They'll smash right through your windscreen if you hit one. Ugh. I guess that probably wasn't the exciting answer you were looking for... Oh, but did you know, that kangaroos can do this thing where they jump up and kick you, and they can rip out a mans stomach with their claws? That's a REALLY rare thing, you would have to be a massive idiot to annoy a kangaroo enough for it do do that, but its possible. But they're actually really peaceful creatures.

macca

Typical City slickers. In the midst of their hectic life they fail to take notice of things. Kangaroos are pretty much everywhere. EVEN IN MAJOR CITIES. If you are up early enough check your local Golf Course. The outter suburbs. And no they dont cause havvoc unless they are annoyed. Then they may kick and fight. Roos are everywhere. I have raised a few, i shoot them due to the crops they destroy. They are harmless unless they feel threatened

(:elcie;

they only cause havoc on themselves really,
but that's our fault,
i see a lot getting accidentally getting hit by cars when they're just trying to cross the road :(

tuppenybitz

LOL a lot of australians have probably never seen a roo in the wild

no.1tokiohoteladdict

looool , i've always wondered.

Elle K

i am 16 years old and live and have lived in australia my whole life
let me tell you one thing
i have never even seen a kangaroo before!!!

PrEciOuS

you have NOTHING to worry about
i live in the city of melbourne ( in victoria) and there is no such thing as wild kangaroos
they are all in cages in zoos and are never let out
so you have nothing to worry about because its very safe
:)

saltboxlane

Umm..no

Squirrels are 100 times more common than a kangaroo which means you will never see one in a city unless you visit the zoo

Driver T

Amazing that so far 19 people have posted an answer, and none of them have mentioned that there are now quite a few people in the cities (and more in the country towns) who keep a pet roo or two. They are saddled up and ridden around the town, to and from work, to the malls, and very much used as most people would use a bicycle.
The advantage with them is that they are easy to train to come when they are whistled. So you can just let it roam free in the park, and when you have finished work, or done your shopping, or finished at the cinema, you just whistle and hey, within 2 or 3 minutes your roo is there ready to be ridden home.

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