Kangaroo and Nascar
- Thread starter Fran
- Start date
Lothlorien
Active Member
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
F
flutterbee
Guest
Aaaawwwwww!
DammitJanet
Well-Known Member
LMAO...Fran...I thought you were going to be talking about the Kangaroo gas stations and some promotion they were doing that had to do with Nascar!
LMAO LMAO
LMAO LMAO
Marguerite
Active Member
We were watching that race live. It was in the pre-race race, Hardie's Heroes, the day before the BIG race. Amazingly, it wasn't hurt. Back in 2004 though, a roo was hit. It had to be put down afterwards.
The race was our annual Bathurst 1000. It used to be the Bathurst 500 when we had miles and not kilometres. It's now 1000 kilometres which is even longer, but the race still finishes earlier tan it did because everything is much faster now.
We found a link - if you search for "kangaroo" and "Bathurst 1000" in youtube, you'll find a few, including the one from a few years ago that got hit.
Here is the nicer link, from the other day's race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-ad_IT6SiU
I think the recent rains which have greened things up a bit out near Bathurst has improved the pasture enough for the roos to move in. We noticed a lot more roos around Canberra, too. These creatures are adapted to periods of drought followed by short spells of plenty. A female kangaroo in times of plenty has three young - one at heel, one in the pouch and in in utero, in suspended animation. As soon as a joey is born and it's crawled into the pouch (and remember, for a full-sized Red Kangaroo the joey is still only an inch or two long) the female mates again, but the development of the foetus is arrested after a short time, only to start up again when the current pouch young leaves permanently.
So in drought times if the baby at heel dies (or leaves) and the pouch young also leaves the pouch and either dies or leaves, the baby in utero STILL won't develop until the mother has enough body reserves (as she does if she gets a good feed and plenty of water). The foetus can stay in stasis for years. But as soon as the rains come, if there is no pouch young the baby begins to develop again and can be born only a couple of weeks later, when she is immediately fertilised again (assuming a male is nearby). And if the drought has been so bad that she's the only roo around for miles, there is still a 50:50 chance her new pouch young will be a male.
So in times of plenty, the population can explode in a matter of months. As long as there is rich pasture and water, the joeys will leave the pouch earlier than otherwise and leave the mother free to have more babies, as long as things are good.
And right now, the fields around Bathurst are showing a bit of green, unlike the straw yellow they've been for a few years.
Why did the roos jump onto the track? because they can. Maybe they were startled by the crowds (a lot of people there, maybe someone accidentally chased a roo onto the track) or maybe startled by the noise. Few fences are high enough to keep a roo out. At the zoo where difficult child 1 was working, the fences there are about 3 metres and curved inwards at the top. Plus, the roos were kept feeling safe and well-fed. And they were the smaller Grey Kangaroo - the same one that got onto the track.
Star, the outback isn't that safe. It's beautiful, but perhaps the most dangerous thing we've had out there in recent years has been human. He's currently behind bars but we get people like this in that area - not all of them Aussie in origin. The safest place to enjoy seeing Aussie stuff would be Melbourne or Hobart. They do have Tassie Devils in the wild in Tasmania (Hobart) but I've not heard of people being attacked by them, unless they work with them. Mind you, it's hard to find road kill more than a few hours old, down in Tasmania. Sydney does have a couple more deadly spiders than Melbourne, but as I said before, nobody's died for decades, not since we got the antivenin and learned a few other tricks. Just don't go north of Brisbane and you'll be right. And at difficult child 1's zoo - you CAN cuddle a roo, if it will let you. If it doesn't want you to, it will move away. We hand feed them, the zoo provides small bags of animal food - pellets, chaff etc. The Grey Kangaroos have really pretty faces, I love them. A face a bit like a whippet. The Red has a face more like a Great Dane.
Marg
The race was our annual Bathurst 1000. It used to be the Bathurst 500 when we had miles and not kilometres. It's now 1000 kilometres which is even longer, but the race still finishes earlier tan it did because everything is much faster now.
We found a link - if you search for "kangaroo" and "Bathurst 1000" in youtube, you'll find a few, including the one from a few years ago that got hit.
Here is the nicer link, from the other day's race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-ad_IT6SiU
I think the recent rains which have greened things up a bit out near Bathurst has improved the pasture enough for the roos to move in. We noticed a lot more roos around Canberra, too. These creatures are adapted to periods of drought followed by short spells of plenty. A female kangaroo in times of plenty has three young - one at heel, one in the pouch and in in utero, in suspended animation. As soon as a joey is born and it's crawled into the pouch (and remember, for a full-sized Red Kangaroo the joey is still only an inch or two long) the female mates again, but the development of the foetus is arrested after a short time, only to start up again when the current pouch young leaves permanently.
So in drought times if the baby at heel dies (or leaves) and the pouch young also leaves the pouch and either dies or leaves, the baby in utero STILL won't develop until the mother has enough body reserves (as she does if she gets a good feed and plenty of water). The foetus can stay in stasis for years. But as soon as the rains come, if there is no pouch young the baby begins to develop again and can be born only a couple of weeks later, when she is immediately fertilised again (assuming a male is nearby). And if the drought has been so bad that she's the only roo around for miles, there is still a 50:50 chance her new pouch young will be a male.
So in times of plenty, the population can explode in a matter of months. As long as there is rich pasture and water, the joeys will leave the pouch earlier than otherwise and leave the mother free to have more babies, as long as things are good.
And right now, the fields around Bathurst are showing a bit of green, unlike the straw yellow they've been for a few years.
Why did the roos jump onto the track? because they can. Maybe they were startled by the crowds (a lot of people there, maybe someone accidentally chased a roo onto the track) or maybe startled by the noise. Few fences are high enough to keep a roo out. At the zoo where difficult child 1 was working, the fences there are about 3 metres and curved inwards at the top. Plus, the roos were kept feeling safe and well-fed. And they were the smaller Grey Kangaroo - the same one that got onto the track.
Star, the outback isn't that safe. It's beautiful, but perhaps the most dangerous thing we've had out there in recent years has been human. He's currently behind bars but we get people like this in that area - not all of them Aussie in origin. The safest place to enjoy seeing Aussie stuff would be Melbourne or Hobart. They do have Tassie Devils in the wild in Tasmania (Hobart) but I've not heard of people being attacked by them, unless they work with them. Mind you, it's hard to find road kill more than a few hours old, down in Tasmania. Sydney does have a couple more deadly spiders than Melbourne, but as I said before, nobody's died for decades, not since we got the antivenin and learned a few other tricks. Just don't go north of Brisbane and you'll be right. And at difficult child 1's zoo - you CAN cuddle a roo, if it will let you. If it doesn't want you to, it will move away. We hand feed them, the zoo provides small bags of animal food - pellets, chaff etc. The Grey Kangaroos have really pretty faces, I love them. A face a bit like a whippet. The Red has a face more like a Great Dane.
Marg
crazymama30
Active Member
That video is amazing, but I really like the them to "Skippy the Bush Kangaroo" playing in the background. I almost laughed untill the poor little guy almost got creamed. That is one lucky Roo!!!!
SearchingForRainbows
Active Member
I'm happy he made it!!! WFEN
