Kitabı oku: «National Geographic Kids Chapters: Kangaroo to the Rescue!: And More True Stories of Amazing Animal Heroes»

Luke Richards and his friends were driving home late one evening.

“Watch out!” one of the boys yelled. “There’s something in the road!”

Squee!! The driver hit the brakes and swerved. He avoided hitting the lump in the road.

“Pull over, mate,” Luke said. He wanted to move whatever was in the road out of the way. Luke hopped out of the car.

The lump turned out to be a dead kangaroo. That would be a shock if you lived in the United States. But Luke lived in Australia. Millions of kangaroos live there, too. Unfortunately, sometimes they wander into the road in front of cars and trucks.

Luke was sad to see the kangaroo, but he knew he had to move it out of the way. He grabbed the animal by the tail and dragged it to the side of the road. It was heavy. Full-grown eastern gray kangaroos, or “roos,” as they say in Australia, weigh about 145 pounds (66 kg).

Then Luke saw something amazing. The kangaroo’s belly twitched. Kangaroos are a kind of mammal known as marsupials (sounds like mar-SOO-pee-ulz). Females have a pouch across their bellies. That’s where they keep their babies, called joeys (sounds like JOE-eez). Luke put his hand in the pouch. Gently, he removed a joey. It had survived the accident!

Luke didn’t think his parents would be happy if he brought the joey home. But he looked into the animal’s frightened eyes. He just couldn’t leave the little roo behind.

The joey was about the size of a cat. Luke wrapped it in his sweater. He climbed back into the car.

When he got home, Luke tiptoed into the house. He didn’t want to wake his parents. He got some newspapers and covered the floor of his room. He offered the joey some water. Then he tucked the little roo snugly into his sweater. He draped the sweater over his bedpost. He hoped it would feel like the mother’s pouch. Within minutes, both he and the joey were asleep.

Did You Know?

When it’s born, a baby kangaroo is hairless. It takes several months before its fur grows in.

The next morning, Luke’s mother, Lynn, opened the door to his bedroom. It was a mess. She frowned. “Luke?” she called in a voice that said he was in trouble. Luke sat up. And like bread in a toaster, the joey popped up, too.

“I’ve got a little friend, mum,” said Luke.

“So I see,” his mother sputtered.

Luke’s family lived on a small farm. It was about 90 miles (145 km) west of the city of Melbourne. The farm was surrounded by land that was covered with wild plants and trees. This is known as “the bush” in Australia. Animals from the bush often wandered onto the farm. Sometimes Luke and his sister, Celeste, would find an injured one.

“They brought home a lot of king parrots that were hurt,” said their father, Len. Once Luke and Celeste found a wounded opossum. They even rescued a wombat. They brought them to their father. He showed them how to nurse the animals.

But a baby kangaroo was another story. This joey was a female. She was about three months old. Normally, a joey doesn’t even peek out of its pouch until it is four months old. At five or six months, it climbs out into the world. But only for a short time. After a few minutes, the joey dives headfirst back into the pouch. The joey doesn’t leave the pouch for good until it’s about ten months old.

This joey would need a lot of care. Luke’s parents wondered if he would have enough time to take care of her.

“I want to do it,” Luke told them. His mother and father discussed it. They were proud of him for wanting to take care of the roo. Len and Lynn decided to give him a chance.

Lynn found an old sleeping bag. She cut it up. She sewed a pouch for the baby kangaroo. Luke slipped the joey in. She seemed to like it. It was more like a mother’s pouch than Luke’s sweater had been.

Next, Luke tried to feed the joey milk from a bottle. She refused.

(photo credit 1.1)

Marsupials are mammals, like dogs and people. Like most mammals, they give birth to live babies. But marsupials are different from other mammals in one big way. Marsupial females have pouches. When they give birth, their babies are very tiny. A newborn kangaroo is about the size of a grape!

Right after birth, a marsupial baby crawls into its mother’s pouch. The mother carries her babies in her pouch for months. Most of the marsupials in the world live in Australia. The largest marsupial is the red kangaroo. Koalas and wombats are also marsupials.

Poor baby. She was probably missing her mother’s milk. But Luke didn’t give up. And after a couple of days, the joey finally drank the milk. Now that she was drinking milk, Luke had to feed her often—even in the middle of the night.

After taking the bottle for a while, the joey suddenly stopped. Maybe she’s ready for real food, Luke thought. He knew that kangaroos eat tender leaves and grass. Luke pulled up some grass and put it in his room.

The next morning, Len heard his son call out, “She’s eating grass!” The joey was growing up.

Luke continued to take care of the little roo. His family helped. They held her, petted her, and snuggled her. She cuddled with them on the couch. They were growing very attached to her.

But after a few months, the Richards family had another discussion.

“I think it’s time we turned the joey out,” Len said. He knew she needed to return to the wild.

No one wanted to see her go. She was a family pet now. But they agreed it was the right thing to do. The next morning, Len opened the gate. The family watched silently as the joey hopped through it. She bounded over the next fence. She bounced high over the next one.

She was gone.

But three hours later, something was hopping around the Richardses’ yard. The joey was back!

In the Richardses’ backyard, Lulu perks up her big ears. (photo credit 1.2)