Here’s a weird one for you: Kangaroos in New South Wales have become so utterly, hopelessly, ferociously addicted to carrots that they’ve taken to scratching the ever-loving shite out of unsuspecting tourists just to get a taste.
The story goes thusly: in southern Lake Macquarie, just south of Newcastle, a somewhat unlikely tourist destination has popped up at the Morisset Hospital. On grassy slopes in parkland surrounding the hospital, hoards of borderline-tame kangaroos can be found hopping around, leading to scores of tourists making the trek up from Sydney to see the animals in the wild and take photos with them.
To entice the two-legged hop dogs to get close enough for a choice Instagram snap, people have been dangling food in front of them, despite signs explicitly asking tourists to not feed the animals. Specifically, people have been offering up carrots to the pouchy pals, who have been gleefully taking up the offer.
Here’s where it gets weird.
As it turns out, the high sugar content of carrots is unnatural to the roos diets, meaning the vegetable basically gets them all het up; a carrot’s sugar content means it’s the kangaroo equivalent of shoving choccy bars into yr gob all day long.
Combine that with the high-traffic nature of the tourist spot, and a subsequent lost fear of humans in the process, and the roos up there are now all so utterly filthy for a little lick of Professor Yum’s Orange Stick that they’re causing unwitting tourists significant injuries.
Tourist shuttle bus operators state that people are being kicked and clawed “at least every day” in the area, with multiple people receiving significant gashes thanks to the carotene-addled kangaroos. One reported injury suffered by an unidentified woman is said to have required 17 stitches in her face to close.
Shane Lewis, who drives a tourist bus in the area, went so far as to state that some people have even been feeding the kangaroos McDonald’s and other fast food.
The kangaroos see at least 2,000 tourists a week and they don’t need 2,000 carrots or bananas and bread, chips and biscuits.
I’ve even seen some silly people feeding them McDonalds, KFC, corn chips, oats and there are some foods they are very aggressive for.
Once I show them the photos they usually pull their kids away and put their food away when they know what can actually happen.
There was a guy who got his stomach gashed open and he wasn’t even feeding them but… they’d been to McDonalds 10 minutes before, so whether they still had the food smell on them I have no idea, but for some reason the kangaroo took to him.
Experts have warned that carrots – or any food other than grass – can be detrimental to a kangaroo’s health, with one disease in particular known as Lumpy Jaw being a severe risk. Adorable sounding? Sure. But it’s extremely painful for the animal and almost always fatal.
The area remains largely unregulated, and while there are no calls for that to change anytime soon, tourist operators in the area have called for better signage in order to help prevent scratching attacks from occurring in the future.
So there you go, mates. Don’t feed a kangaroo a carrot. The more you bloody know.
