A team of wildlife rescuers have been praised for their efforts to rescue a joey from a hole at a residential construction site in Mernda.
The female orphaned kangaroo, who has since been named Poppy, was spotted by a member of the public covered in mud from tip to tail in a shaft on a vacant block of land at the end of April.
Volunteer wildlife rescuer Justin Pipe, alongside a team of volunteers, responded to the call for attention at the site.
“There was several minutes of deciding what to do, coming up with a plan,” he said.
“[The hole] was a hell-of-a-lot deeper than what it looks in the video – it was steep, it was slippery,
“There was a crew doing some construction digging with excavators, tractors, things like that. I was going to go and ask them if they could help. I was considering the SES […] or the fire brigade.
“I thought ‘let’s see what happens, I’ll jump in’ – I couldn’t reach down with my hands because I would’ve gone in head first.”
Mr Pipe was able to partially stand inside the shaft and wedge the joey carefully up with his foot, and fellow wildlife rescuer Natasha Talbot help pull her out.
After a clean, Poppy was taken for a thorough assessment at Balwyn Central Vet Hospital, where she was warmed up and put on fluids.
The 11-kilogram joey is now being monitored at a wildlife shelter, where she was reported to be ‘up and about’ and bonding with other kangaroos.
Mr Pipe said it wasn’t a surprise to receive a call to a kangaroo in a residential area, but it was ‘a little unusual’ to find the joey stuck in a hole.
“Lots of kangaroos get stuck in construction areas, whether it’s for a house or in some of those civil construction areas where they’re building new streets and drains and sewerage pipes,” he said.
“In a lot of these places, the gates can’t be closed all day everyday, they have to be open for people and trucks to get in.
“Kangaroos can find a way in, even through the gaps.
“They get stuck in all sorts of places – inside factories, inside school grounds. A couple years ago there was one in Greensborough Plaza that managed to get inside the Target.“
Mr Pipe encouraged people to call in sick, injured, orphaned and displaced wildlife in Melbourne and surrounds to The Wildlife Rescuers Inc on 0417 506 941.
