Speaking of civic-minded kangaroos, check out what we here in Australia are doing with our kangaroos. Next thing you know, they'll be so technologically savvy we'll have them flying drones and killing terrorists.
That's a tracking collar and ear tag Skippy there has on. Note the embarrassed look ("I was dumb enough to let them catch me and now I have to endure the endless ribbing of my brother Chet here behind me").
I couldn't make this stuff up. Here's the story in the Canberra Times ("We Like Stories About Car Wrecks and "Dragon Trees" Stolen From The National Arboretum"):
Tailing the capital's mobs on the move
02 Sep, 2010 09:02 AM
The study, conducted by the Department of Territory and Municipal Services, has tracked 24 eastern grey kangaroos fitted with GPS tracking collars since early 2010.
Don Fletcher, a senior ecologist with the Department of Territory and Municipal Services, said that by understanding the movement patterns of kangaroo mobs, ecologists could better target kangaroo culls.
''What's the best strategic scale on which to deploy kangaroo control to get effective results?'' Dr Fletcher asked. ''The first step is simply, well what's the home range of the kangaroo? This contributes to that more effective and strategic management of kangaroo populations.''
The study also shows that kangaroos may have more road sense than they are generally given credit for. Dr Fletcher said the findings may help to prevent the 1000 kangaroo-related crashes that occur in the ACT every year. [Comment: Australians like to say roos are stupid - I've watched what they do and they are not; the people who spend $2,000 on a chrome roo bar for the front of their car are, however, another matter]
''The most interesting part is roos have road sense, nobody believes me,'' he said.
Dr Fletcher said initial findings showed that kangaroos purposefully avoided high-speed roads.
Ecologists have even been tracking one set of kangaroos which appears to be using an underpass to cross State Circle near Parliament House. [Comment: I use the same underpass to get to work]
Canberra has a high density of kangaroos, with around 300 kangaroos per square kilometre.
Rangers attend about 1000 kangaroo-related accidents every year and suspect that about 1000 accidents occur without their knowledge.
Using the
GPS collars with Google Earth, the Department of Territory and
Municipal Services has also created an interactive map, allowing the
public to track kangaroo movements from their own home.
The collars have been recording the location of the kangaroos every hour since January 2010.
The study will continue until January next year, at which point the collars will automatically detach themselves.
(They could use something like that on Lindsay Lohan for her latest home detention for violating her probation for DUI. Would save her the bodyguards the effort of trying to pick the lock on the ankle monitor.)
Anyway, I could not resist this. I went to the website for the Department of Territory and Municipal Services. I hit the button for "Kangaroo Research." There's a "Kangaroo Management Plan."
Here's where the interactive map is:
http://www.tams.act.gov.au/play/pcl/wildlife/local/kangaroos/mgt_plan/research/movement
But you have to follow the instructions, download Google Earth, then download the kangaroo tracker program (follow the instructions - it isn't hard). Get this part:
"When the file opens, you will see groups of green and red symbols, each group located where there was a collared kangaroo. Zoom down to one of these groups. Green symbols show the kangaroo’s daytime locations, with red symbols for night. You can click the individual symbols for the name of the kangaroo, and the time and date it was at that location. Stars are points of the highest precision, triangles are unreliable, and circles are of intermediate quality. Straight lines join successive locations, and do not necessarily show the route used by the kangaroo."
I tried to do a screen capture from Google Earth but I am not yet conversant in the technique but take my word for it. Our neighborhood is a cornucopia of green and red circles. And lots of pink lines connecting them. This explains the strange noises I hear at night (other than the voices in my head).
Well, that's life here with the roos in Canberra. The cats have still not seen one up close. I'd pay money for that.
"Geez, I feel silly. That's the last time I sleep in."
(That's our neighborhood just behind Skippy)
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