{"id":37422,"date":"2025-08-01T12:21:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T12:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/37422\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T12:21:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T12:21:22","slug":"sad-discovery-near-housing-estate-prompts-stern-warning-to-aussies-over-growing-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/37422\/","title":{"rendered":"Sad discovery near housing estate prompts stern warning to Aussies over growing issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

WARNING – DISTRESSING IMAGES: A thoughtless act by tradies has led to an iconic Australian animal being impaled on a steel spike. Disturbing photos taken next to a building site in Melbourne\u2019s southeast show a thick, rusted rebar sticking through the body of a young kangaroo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tiny wild animal was unusually calm when she was discovered by a passerby on the weekend in the outer suburb of Officer. When wildlife rescuer Sarah Cooke got the call, she had hoped the roo was simply caught in a string of abandoned wire, so she brought along a pair of bolt cutters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere those rebars are, there\u2019s runoff, like a drain. And builders in the area look to have just dumped crap there,\u201d she told Yahoo News.<\/p>\n

Related: Anger in Aussie tourist region after council kangaroo ban rejected<\/a><\/p>\n

Cooke volunteers at Wildlife Incident Safe Haven (WISH) where she rescues and cares for native animals. <\/a>As you would expect, she regularly sees terrible situations, but the little kangaroo\u2019s predicament was one of the worst.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went straight over and stabilised her, so she couldn\u2019t move much. I sedated her so I could safely get her off. Ideally, I would have cut the rebar, but it was too thick, and an angle grinder would have caused too many sparks,\u201d Cooke said.<\/p>\n

‘Glimmer of hope’ as kangaroo removed from bar<\/p>\n

There was little blood or smell, leading her to suspect the rebar had missed the kangaroo\u2019s vital organs. As Cooke removed her from the rebar, it became clear how the unfortunate incident had occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realised she must have somehow gone to jump the rebar, and her pouch has gotten caught. So she\u2019s just dropped straight on it, and it’s gone through her pouch and then come up next to her leg, beside her hip bone,\u201d Cooke said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was holding out a glimmer of hope that if there was just muscle damage, she might pull through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Cooke shared images of the incident, hoping they would serve as a warning not to dump rubbish. Source: Wildlife Incident Safe Haven<\/p>\n

After the kangaroo was taken to specialist medical staff an hour away at Healesville Sanctuary, hope began to fade. The rust and dirt on the bar had contaminated the youngster\u2019s body, creating a risk of infection, and the muscle on her hip had been damaged.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if she had survived and healed, she wouldn\u2019t have been able to keep up with the mob. She would have been able to hop for 20 or 30 minutes and then need to rest for days,\u201d Cooke said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be different if we could pop her into care for the rest of their life, we could manage that pain if we could have her as a pet. But we can\u2019t legally do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

After she was euthanised, a necropsy of her body revealed there was more damage than originally thought. Not only were multiple muscle bundles severed, there was a slight tear in her abdominal cavity.<\/p>\n

Dumped rubbish also posed danger to nearby families<\/p>\n

Dumping of rubbish is becoming a major issue in Australia<\/a>, with Yahoo publishing multiple reports of building waste abandoned on public land around the country. Cooke has a simple message to anyone looking to cut corners and leave their waste behind for someone else to clean up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat could have been a kid, someone\u2019s pet. Right behind where the kangaroo was found is an empty paddock next to a housing estate with families,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not fair. It\u2019s not hard to clean up. At least if you\u2019re going to leave crap lying around, make it so no one is going to get caught.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooke plans to report the dumping site to local authorities. In an impassioned post to social media, she shared details of the incident, not to make the general public sad, but to highlight the trauma rescuers experience every day.<\/p>\n

“The things we see [are] absolutely so traumatic, and it can take a big toll. I have become very stoic over the years… But it still hits us, it still hurts, it still keeps us up at night, it still runs through our head on a daily basis on [whether] we made the right decision,” she wrote.<\/p>\n

“And it still god damn hurts like hell.”<\/p>\n

Love Australia’s weird and wonderful environment? \ud83d\udc0a\ud83e\udd98\ud83d\ude33 Get our new newsletter<\/a> showcasing the week\u2019s best stories.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARNING – DISTRESSING IMAGES: A thoughtless act by tradies has led to an iconic Australian animal being impaled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,28228,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-37422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sarah-cooke","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}