Never realised how cursed kangaroos were until last night. I’m camping and ¾ of my tent is surrounded by bush which must’ve freaked out the local wildlife. Waking up in the middle of the black night to the sound of HOPPING and shuffling outside your tent then a little nose loudly sniffing right near your head is a uniquely horrifying experience. Totally forgot I was Australian for good minute and thought I was going to be taken by something from the Blair Witch Project before I remember kangaroos exist
I’ve informed by our camping neighbours that one of the animals ruffling near my tent last night, keeping me up, was actually a bandicoot
THIS motherfucker
When I was a kid my elderly neighbor called up my house at like 10pm to tell us that she caught our pet rabbit in her yard, and that she must have escaped.
We get out of bed and go over and she hands us a live bandicoot, barehanded. Just. Holding him like Simba, hands under his little arms.
This happened multiple times a month. We would be like. Are you sure it’s our black lop-eared bunny? She would say yes it’s definitely the rabbit. Nope. Unnaturally patient bandicoot again. Being held like a little baby. Visibly brown and pointy.
She was upset at us for letting our rabbit get into her vegetable garden and would not accept that he was a wild animal owned by no one, that ate insects not cabbage. We showed her the rabbit. No. We showed her his teeth. No. The cabbages had been eaten by something (snails, also shown to her) so it must be our rabbit, the bandicoot. If we didn’t go pick him up she would put him in the bathtub and bring him over in the morning. Could not convince her that he wasn’t a pet.
We named him Bruce and just released him into our yard every time because we were worried she would put him in the hutch with the rabbit if we didn’t, and we didn’t know what the rabbit would do.
Pretty sure it was the same one every time because apparently she would just walk over and pick him up off the ground and everything. No traps no gloves.
at some point, people are so vastly unfamiliar with, and simultaneously so deeply afraid of the Bad Animal that they mistake common and harmless native species for it, and overreact accordingly
