r/interestingasfuck • u/Odd-Difference-1483 • 17d ago

/r/all Kangaroos are freaking scary.

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u/Moosiemookmook 17d ago

I grew up in the capital of Australia, Canberra. We have kangaroo culls regularly and our school ovals, parks and sports fields have kangaroo poo everywhere. I have sent my friends in Europe videos of kangaroos in my suburb just bouncing along a fence line looking for an exit. People hit them on our main roads when driving at certain times of the day/night.

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u/InflationRepulsive64 17d ago

For context, Canberra has about 400K-500K people, to give you an idea of city size. Though it's a planned city and has a lot of natural spaces.

Roos in the suburbs aren't really common, but also wouldn't be a 'holy shit' moment. There's a good chance any large bush area has them, and many of them are adjacent to suburbs. They aren't generally the kind of animal that is 'human friendly', so you're not going to see them doing things like begging for food.

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u/Moosiemookmook 17d ago

Agreed, not every suburb but I grew up backing on to Mt Ainslie as did most of my friends and moved to Gungahlin early. Theres plenty of them out there. My high school regularly had roo poo everywhere and even a dead one once. Id say theyre common depending on the suburb. We are the Bush capital after all.

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u/YouAboutToLoseYoJob 16d ago

So, basically the Buffalo of Australia?

We have lots of buffalo in Oklahoma. Sometimes they sit in the middle of the road and there’s nothing you can do about it.

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u/Moosiemookmook 16d ago

Kangaroos are like missiles of mass destruction that bounce from the dark on the side of the road and hit your front grill/bonnet. They sometimes just appear in your headlights and stare like a proverbial deer in the headlights. It's better to hit them front on because swerving at high speeds is not a good idea. We have roo bars and spotlights to try and avoid hitting them. We hit a huge male in our motor home and it folded our bumper, rolled under the wheel and sprayed blood everywhere. You feel so bad when it happens.

In saying that North America scares me with the thought of buffalo and moose as the alternative.

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u/coffeebribesaccepted 16d ago

Sounds like deer here in the US then. They jump out into the road without warning the same way. Buffalo and moose are usually just hanging around. Buffalo are usually in herds, and just stand around in a field. Sometimes they'll get in a fight and you don't want to be in the way when the loser starts running. Moose are pretty rare to see and aren't just jumping out in front of cars like deer. They're big though, wouldn't want to piss one off.

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u/johnmayersucks 16d ago

Do people eat them? Good meat?

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u/Moosiemookmook 16d ago

I personally don't like it. It can be hard to cook. Easy to overcook and yeah I can't get past the visual to even bother with eating a Skippy. But in saying that I encourage anyone who likes it to eat roo. They are considered a pest to humans so Id rather their meat and hide are used for something other than dog food. I feed my dogs roo but have for 30 years. Eating it only became popular in the last couple of decades. Before that no one would eat them.

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u/dddavyyy 16d ago

Yeah. Very lean, but the fats it has are good fats. You can buy it in supermarket chains, but it is wild harvested so not always readily available. Difficult to cook because of its low fat content, but tastes pretty good and a healthier red meat alternative to beef.

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u/Bulky-Leadership-596 17d ago

Liar. The capital of Australia is obviously Sydney.

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u/ddraig-au 17d ago

How dare you, sir. Everyone knows the capital is Melberlin <<<---- it's even in the name!