Skip rescued from a dip

The unusual sight of a kangaroo hopping around in Princess Royal Harbour greeted local Robinson resident Darren Prior this morning.

Mr Prior, an amateur photographer, jumped at the opportunity to capture the young female kangaroo leaping into the shallow water off Frenchman Bay Road, but little did he know he would be rescuing it more than three hours later.

“I received a phone call that there was a kangaroo out in the water not far from where I lived so I grabbed the camera and took a walk and sure enough there was a small kangaroo out in the water,” he said.

“I watched it hop around for a while and it didn’t appear to want to move so I made a phone call to the rangers and one of those guys came out and had a look and we decided to leave it sit and see if it got itself out and I returned an hour later and it was still there.”

While the kangaroo could stand and sit, Mr Prior sensed it had become distressed when he paddled out in his kayak two hours after capturing a photo of it leaping into the water for an unknown reason.

“I grabbed my kayak to see if I could get it to move closer to shore but unsuccessfully,” he said.

“From what I thought it sort of looked frightened rather than anything else because we saw it hopping earlier and it didn’t appear to be injured. (It was) just scared and disoriented and didn’t know where to go.”

Born Free Wildlife Carers volunteer Toni Hough then arrived on the scene and managed to eventually grasp the kangaroo and bring it to shore with the help of Mr Prior, who released it back into paddocks across Frenchman Bay Road after more than three hours in the water.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before certainly not,” he said.