In rare fatal attack, Australian man killed by 'pet' kangaroo

In a very rare case of its kind, a man who may have been keeping a wild kangaroo as a pet was killed by the animal in southwest Australia.

The 77-year-old-man was found by his relative with serious injuries at his property in sparsely populated Redmond town, but died before ambulance reached there.


"It is believed the man had been attacked by the kangaroo earlier in the day," AFP quoted a state police spokesman as saying.

Police believe the victim had been keeping the wild kangaroo as a pet, something which is restricted legally in Australia.

Police said they shot dead the wild kangaroo because it was preventing paramedics from reaching the injured man.

Kangaroos can get aggressive at times, but this is the first fatal attack by a kangaroo in Australia since 1936.

In that case 86 years ago, a 38-year-old man suffered extensive head injuries including a broken jaw as he attempted to rescue his two dogs from a large kangaroo, and died in a hospital.

“This looks like it was an adult male and they become quite aggressive and they don’t do well in captivity," Tanya Irwin, an expert in Perth told AP.

The kangaroo is a marsupial from the family of macropods, and is indigenous to Australia and New Guinea. There are four common species - the red kangaroo, the antilopine kangaroo, eastern grey kangaroo, and the western grey kangaroo.

Reports said western gray kangaroos are common in Australia’s southwest. They can weigh up to 54 kilograms and stand 1.3 meters tall. Aggressive males can fight humamns by grappling the opponent with their front limbs , balancing their body weight an lashing out with both their powerful clawed hind legs.

Despite their soulful looks, kangaroos are not cute animals; they are wild animals. More than a 40 million kangaroos are believed to live in the harvest areas of Australia.