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Heartbreaking footage of a kangaroo desperately trying to wake up his mate in a cemetery after she was struck by a car highlights the often unseen devastation Australian traffic inflicts on wildlife every day.
In the video, the female kangaroo lies lifeless while her mate stands over her, gently shaking her head with his paws in an attempt to wake her up. The scene unfolded in a cemetery in Queanbeyan, NSW, with the pair surrounded by gravestones as cars drove past in the distance.
It was so harrowing, the highly skilled wildlife rescuer, Christian McDonald, could do nothing more than shed a tear and watch on, knowing her injuries were too severe to save her.
"I have been doing the role for almost two years, with an average call out of between three to five a day, and I have seen some of the most terrible scenarios that kangaroos have been left in from motor vehicle accidents," Christian told Yahoo News.
"But never have I witnessed something so emotional that it had me in tears."
The kangaroo was carrying a joey in her pouch, which Christian was able to rescue, before he humanely euthanised her mum.
The joey will need to be hand-reared for up to 18 months before she can be released back into the wild.
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It's estimated that more than 10 million native animals are killed by vehicles each year in Australia, and while wildlife rescuers continue to speak, many incidents usually go unreported, unlike the heartbreaking scene in Queanbeyan.
However, the recent death of a nurse who stopped on a busy Melbourne highway to help an injured kangaroo last week has ignited calls to mandate reporting of wildlife collisions on roads. At the moment, motorists are only legally required to stop and report a collision if the animal is deemed property, such as cases where a dog or cattle are struck.
Councillors with the Hume City Council in Victoria, where wildlife collisions are most frequent, told the ABC this week that they support mandatory reporting of car strikes on animals and want the state to follow NSW by introducing a database of incidents. Currently that thankless task is mostly carried out by volunteers rescuers.
New South Wales has a state-run database of road strike incidents that helps to inform decision-making and keep account of wildlife deaths. At the moment a parliamentary inquiry in Victoria is examining volunteer networks, as well as emerging technologies and infrastructure that are used to prevent road strikes and protect road users from vehicle damage and trauma. The inquiry is due to report back in November.
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