Every now and then, a film comes along that redefines cinema: ‘Citizen Kane‘, ‘Battleship Potemkin‘, ‘Ben Hur‘, ‘Star Wars‘, and, now, that video of the bloke punching a hefty kangaroo square in the chops.
Unfamiliar? It’s a video of a bloke punching a hefty kangaroo square in the chops:
If someone asked me “Would you punch a roo?” before today, I would have definitely said “no” – because, firstly, kangaroos are beautiful animals, and, secondly, because a kangaroo could beat the shit out of me easily. But if a boomer (a roo, not old person) put my best friend (a dog, not my best friend Dave) into a headlock, well, that would muddy the waters a bit.
It’s a weird ethical problem, that gets made a whole lot weirder once you throw into the mix who this flanno-clad pugilist is and what he was doing: he’s a zookeeper, who was on a hunting trip organised for a terminally ill cancer patient.
Mathew Amor, owner of the property on which the trip took place, said the young man, who has since passed away, wanted to go boar hunting:
“This hunting trip was put together for a sick young man called Kailem who passed away from cancer last week. Basically Kailem wanted to catch a boar.“And so a few of us got together to take him out, and another mate filmed more than an hour of video to put together as a DVD for Kailem and his family of the trip.”
The roo-punching incident took place when one of the dogs was running through a big group of roos (which they’re trained not to touch), when one of the roos decided to execute a pretty solid headlock on the dog.
Greig Tonkins, zookeeper at Western Plains Zoo and now internet hero, responded the only way he knew how – with a not that great punch, according to Amor:
“My mate only stunned it. His hand was OK, he didn’t hit it very hard at all. It was funny because the guy who did it is the most placid bloke. We laughed at him for chucking such a shit punch.”
Grieg, don’t worry about it mate, I couldn’t punch a kangaroo very good either. Amor reckons Kailem would be getting a kick out of all the attention the video’s been getting:
“Kailem would be looking down from up there and laughing because it was the highlight of the trip.“
Kailem passed away just days after marrying his girlfriend. You can donate here to a GoFundMe for covering the financial burden on his family, if you’re feeling that way inclined.
Western Plains Zoo is having a look into the incident, I guess to see if he shouldn’t have punched that kangaroo:
“Good animal welfare and the protection of Australian wildlife are of the utmost importance to Taronga. We are working with Mr Tonkins to understand the exact circumstances of the event and will consider any appropriate action.”
#GriegIsInnocent, imho.
Source: News.com.au.
Photo: YouTube.
