Twenty kangaroos mowed down by reckless driver in 'senseless piece of stupidity'
Horrified residents of a New South Wales suburb woke up on Sunday to find their nearby streets littered with the corpses of at least 20 dead kangaroos.
The police are working to track down the driver who deliberately ran over and killed the nearly two dozen kangaroos, including joeys, between 10:30 pm and 11:30 pm on Saturday in Tura Beach. Photos of the carnage were posted by local resident Deborah Evans on a Facebook public group called "Tura buy sell and swap."
"We woke to this horrific sight this morning. All over North Tura our beautiful, friendly grey kangaroos have been slaughtered overnight. If anyone saw anything, please tell the police who are in the area today. Whoever did this is a monster. The kangaroos were here before we were. We are the invaders of their home. This makes me so sad," she captioned the post.
Apart from the bodies of the kangaroos lining the streets, there were also visible tyre tracks on the kerbs, indicative of how fast the driver was driving during the night and how recklessly he swerved the vehicle, putting not only the lives of wildlife in danger but also the people in the neighborhood.
Tura Beach resident Rob Evans said that the images "illustrate why people have been so outraged by this senseless piece of stupidity".
Janine Green, who volunteers for the Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service, believes that there could be more kangaroos out there which were seriously injured by the driver's dangerous driving. She is currently taking care of three surviving joeys found by the police.
According to the Guardian, Green said the perpetrator drove a white ute with a spotlight to intentionally run over the animals.
“They were driving around and around and had a spotlight. So the kangaroos were just startled and standing there,” she said.
“They were driving up on the footpaths … It was football final night so a lot of people would have been drinking. So lucky nobody was walking home. The people here actually love kangaroos. They are a part of the population. People in their houses were waking up with carcasses on their lawns. People just couldn’t believe it.”
South coast police district detectives are investigating, with animal welfare groups and police are calling for anybody with information to come forward.