Firstly, this is not a funny story. It may sound funny, but the ghost of skippy's long lost son is going to haunt my dreams for a week. It happened today whilst i was driving tractors for a guy i know. We're out on his farm shifting equipment from one paddock to the next when i park up next to an old tank and see this kangaroo just lying there in the shade. It didn't seem too fussed so i left the tractor there and walked back to get the ute. When i got back, it was still there and was still (seemingly) oblivious to all this noisy junk driving around. I figured it was hurt so i went to check it out.

Sure enough, it had been dragging half its festy foreleg around for probably a week and was emaciated beyond any reasonable measure. This didn't stop it from trying to go me, though. There and then, i acquired a new found respect for this bold, hissing bravado, pathetic as it was, and got my water bottle to give the poor sucker a drink. As soon as it saw the cool, clear water flowing into my sandwitch box, it forgot all about trying to defend his shady grave and sat there still as a mouse. I pushed the container forward and he tentatively began to drink. And drink. When he'd finished, i filled it again and wondered if he'd ever seen or tasted water as cool or clean as this.

I sat down a few feet in front of him and waited. It was like some sort of weird bonding session. He was drinking and looking at me with big black eyes that were no longer afraid but thankful. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling from head to toe.

That's when the boss rocked up. I couldn't have looked more dumbfounded if i'd been caught with his daughter. He made some quip about the 'crocodile hunter' and then told me to put it down and get back to work. I was now faced with a moral dilemma of sorts. When i first went to check it out, i was almost positive i was going to have to kill it. After i had sat with it and gave it the last of my water, this just seemed so barbaric. After a minute, i asked the boss if i could go back and get the gun. He said he wasn't about to waste the time when i could just as easily smack its brains. He jumped in his harvester and drove off.

Again, i stood there weighing up the choices. I could dissobey the boss and fetch the gun or i could find something to hit it. After a painfully long minute, i went to the ute and found the only tool i considerd heavy enough to do the job; a 12" spanner. (a poxy, freakin 12" shifter. No gympie hammers or 1" drive ratchet handles anywhere!) My warm fuzzy feeling was very quickly turning cold.

I walked up to skippy with the shifter in clear view. It was watching me the whole time and just sat there. Didn't move. It had even stopped panting. It just looked at me with those big black eyes. I don't know if it was content to accept it's fate or if it was trying some strange 'roo hypnosis on me. Either way, i felt rotten, but i brought the spanner down.

That's where it's supposed to end. I did the human (humane?) thing and ended it's suffering. At least, that was the plan. I will spare you the details as i'm sure you can imagine the scene that followed. If i thought roos were brainless before, i'm now totally convinced. Suffice to say, even with a poxy spanner, i had crushed its skull and the poor thing was still kicking and rolling all over the place.

I freaked. I was cold all over and listening to the groaning made it worse. I raised the spanner again but my hand was shaking too much to hit a thrashing target. I thought about stepping on it. I thought about strangling it. In the end, i put my hand on its chest and screamed at it "Please die" over and again until finally, its heart slowed and it died.

Now i felt rotten. Pale and shaking. I threw the spanner back in the ute, climbed in, fumbled around until i had a smoke lit and drove off. I didn't dare look back for fear it would start kicking again. So much for mercy. So much for easing the pain. I was now the embodiment of evil. I befriended and then betrayed skippy, and i'm sure the boss was laughing the whole way through.

It's not a nice story, i know, but i need someone to provide a moral to the story or tell me i did the right thing or something. Anything!

I think at least you TRIED to do the right thing, next time though, no matter what your boss says, use a rifle or whatever it is you have there, cause this will indeed probably haunt you in your dreams for some time.

Man that sucks, as a little consolation the body does that when the brain is killed. I however would said screw the boss and went and got the gun. But it still would of kicked around. You did the right thing, but I am sorry to say from personal experiance (not with a roo mind you) your going to have that haunting you for quite awhile :(

Oh dear.. it's NOT a good story at all, but I agree with Johhny. At least you tried to do right by the poor animal. :(

Yes IMO you did the right thing but as johnny said using a rifle would have been better. Sometimes I wish that we could do the same to human patients when there´s too much suffering and no cure. But only sometimes :(

why not next time shoot the boss and get the roo medical attention? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I think you did the right thing. Yes, shooting it would have been better, but if you whacked it hard on the head, the thrashing about was just the nerves reacting - I doubt it was in much pain. Very horrible for you to watch though.

My dad once had to do similar to a baby rabbit we found while on a walk - it had been in an accident and its guts were hanging out of a big gash in its side, no way it could have survived, it was sitting there panting with a glazed look in its eyes. My dad did the only thing he could do - picked up a rock and hit it on the head. He knew he couldn't do anything else, but he still cried (has a bit of a soft spot for rabbits, my dad).

Sometimes we do what we have to do - we may not like it, but that's the way it goes.

Thanks guys, you have made me feel a little better. Shooting the boss (or at least running him down with a 25 ton chaser bin) was high on my list of priorities after i drove off. As for the post mortem thrashing, it was definately alive. It's skull had a dent big enough to hold a football and it was snorting blood and groaning. I could feel its heart racing as i 'willed' it to sleep.

At least i can take some solace knowing that it would have been well and truly senseless.

I can sympathise somewhat at least, even a mercy killing of an animal isn't a nice thing to watch, I've seen it before myself, although not with a kangaroo of course.
Still, you did what you could in the situation, and you can't sensibly ask someone for more than that.
BTW, off topic, but Epona, are you still on MSN?

I wasn't for about 3 months, but I got back on last night, having finally moved into my new place and got my phone line and PC sorted out.

My priorities are arse about face really, I have no fridge or cooker, but my PC and TV work :eek:

That sucks bro :( i know i wouldn't have been able to kill it with anything. So if i did i would have a very good idea of how you feel.

<font color="#ff00cc">I think you did the right thing. I have had to do similar things on a few occasions. I was lucky that I had firearms to work with and it was a quick and reletivley painless affair. Just remember that you helped to ease its suffering in the long run.

The callous and snide remarks about hurting your boss instead, show a lack of depth and character and do nothing to appreciate your turmoil over a hard decision. I think you did well. I also think you did the right thing. </font>

[img]graemlins/dropatear.gif[/img] How sad...I once hit a jack rabbit while driving. I stoped becouse I saw it still moving in my rear view mirror. I went back to see how bad it was, thinking I might have only nicked him, but he was pretty bad. His hips were broke. He was trying to crawl off the road. I knew this rabbit would not survive the coyotes wounded like that, so I killed it with my hands. I broke its neck. I cryed after that. Im a big man, thats not afraid of to much, but helpless animals are weakness (or strength) to me. I dont hunt or even fish. Anyway, I can understand what you went through, and am sorry for it. [img]graemlins/verysad.gif[/img]

Well you did the right thing. At least you had the guts to put the poor thing out of it's misery. I know more than a few people (myself included) who would've just left it there. It would've suffered much more that way. :(

<font color="#ff00cc">I may have been a bit harsh about the comments about your Boss, but I saw them as being flippant and insensitive to your pain about this issue. :( </font>

O_o A true life story of good and evil! wow!

That's horrible what you had to do.I would have just said screw the boss I'm getting my gun. I agree with johnny.You tryed to do the best thing could have done.

Tell me you didnt just kill it and leave it there to rot. Tell me there is more to the story than just bashing in the skull of some trusting creature and then leaveing the carcass to bloat up and rot in the sun. Dont hand me that "ease the animals suffering crap either. How would you like it if someone came a long and bashed in your head just because they thought you were ill and wouldnt make it? The utter wastefullness of it makes me ill.

[ 12-02-2002, 07:53 PM: Message edited by: The Hunter of Jahanna ]

<font color="#ff00cc">Umm Hunter? you don't spend much time in the wilderness do you? The normal life cycle of animals in the wild is full of quite a bit of suffering and misery when the end comes. A quick death is far preferable to a long, lingering pain wracked death any day. Disney (before the days of political correctness) had a documentary about how animals Deer in particular went through life, and they did a detailed filming of sick and weak animals dieing....not pretty at all nor humane. Im not sure that Roo's make for good eating, besides the meat was probably already infected if the animal was already to the point where it couldn't get up, mangled linbs probably already had gangrene setting in. Leaving the carcass for the scavangers at least allowed the animal to complete the cycle and give back to the land.</font>

Acctualy I spend a lot of time in the outdoors ,especialy around this time of year. I have no problem with people killing animals as long as they are going to eat what they kill. All too often I find carcasses from animals that the hunters were either too lazy to collect or too dumb to find. Things like that just aggravate the shit out of me because its completely senseless and wastefull. Killing animals just for the sake of killing them is senseless. So is killing them to "put them out of their misery". Over the years my family has bagged a few deer with healed injurys from car accidents on them. If a deer can heal up a broken leg , shoulder or ribs I am pretty sure just about any other large animal can do the same given sufficient time. I am also sure that nothing on the planet can heal itself after it has had its head bashed in. I would rather give the animal a slim chance at life than a sure chance at death if I wasnt going to put its meat and skin to some sort of use.

Do you live in a place where you have to hunt to eat? There is not many places left on earth were that is the case. If not, then dont give ME that crap about useing the meat for food or the skin for whatever. Would it be ok to kill you as long as I ate you and used your skin for a coat. I doubt it.
In this day and age, we breed animals for food and have synthetic materials for clothing. Any killing of animals is senseless. The liklihood of this animal surviving was very slim from what I read, and probly would have died a slow death. I believe he did right by giving the animal a quicker death.

I am a hunter, I am a source of population control, I help keep some deer from starving during the winter by thinning the herd. I eat the meat of the deer I shoot or give it to POOR families that can not afford to buy your supermarket beef or chicken. What Sever had to do was a horrible thing but he did the noble act of putting that poor Roo out of its misery. However do not turn this into a anti hunting thread LordKathen, you would be wrong to do so. And BTW I don't think you have the faintest idea what those "bred for meat" animals go through. If giving the choice of being a free living deer who's end comes suddenly and swiftly from a highpowered gun or a steer led into a huge stinking place of fear and pain and have a bolt shot into my brain.. I would rather be the deer. Before you talk crap, go to a slaughter house and then on a hunt. I think your views might be changed forever.

Mod Hat on here, folks:

Let's have a little respect for the fact that we all come from different places, in life and geography.

As best I can tell it wasn't started as a 'who knows more about an animal's suffering' and is thus 'more right', thread. I don't think Sever intended a 'hunting' thread at all. This was about compassion and his personal fear that he may or may not have done the right thing.

Wurm, let's keep the 'talk crap' comments out of the thread. It isn't necessary for making your point.


If you want to discuss hunting and it's good/bad points, feel free to open a new thread. Just keep it civil.

Sever...

I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry. :( The whole experience sounds terrible, and I feel nothing but compassion for you. :( If the opinion of a stranger matters, I think you did the right thing. The animal was suffering, and you showed it a bit of kindness, then did your level best to put it out of it's misery. FWIW, I think you're a pretty great human being. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I had a similiar experience awhile back. I was driving to a New Years eve celebration with one of my friends(she was driving), and we hit a dog. It was a big black lab. We were on a dark, county highway, and the thing just sort of came out of nowhere. My friend sort of freaked out, and we were looking for a place to pull over so we could go check on the animal, but, the way the road was situated there were no side roads for several hundred feet, and there was no shoulder to speak of on either side. Eventually, we did find a sub-division...that's when we heard the noise and the car jolted. We shipped over to the side of the road, thinking that the dog's body had torn something loose on the underside of the car...unfortunately we were wrong. When we had struck the dog it had gotten lodged under the car and gotten drug. When we pulled over it was lying in the middle of the road, covered in blood. I darted out between traffic and pulled it into the gutter. I was worried that the poor thing might try to bite me, so I had pulled off my coat so I could throw it over the dog's head, but he only looked up at me, and, when I grabbed him, he just licked my hand. I lost it and was crying by the time I got him to the sidewalk.

My friend was, needless to say, freaked out. She managed to get calm while I ran down the road knocking on people's doors. After about the tenth house I finally found someone home, and they let me use their phone to call Animal Control. They were NO help whatsoever. All they told me to do was just 'leave the animal on the side of the road, and the garbage man would just pick it up'! That was it! I didn't know whether to be disgusted or furious, but I just slammed down the phone and called an emergency vet. They said that, if we could bring the animal in, they would do what they could. But if we couldn't get the animal there, there was nothing they could do, and gave me the same answer as Animal Control. By this time, I was understandably pissed, since the simple act of moving the dog had caused it immense pain, and I knew that, at the very least, it had two, possibly three broken legs, multiple broken ribs, and probably a host of internal injuries. So I hung up on them too and ran back to the dog. It was still alive, but obviously dying. It couldn't even hold up it's head. :(

So, like you, we gave it some water(I almost always carry around a bottle of water), and it lapped up a bit, and then it seemed to just sort of relax to the inevitable. We sat with the dog's head on both of our laps, and just stroked and petted it and waited for it to die. It was one of the very few times in my life I've not carried my handgun, and, for reasons I'll never know, I didn't even have a pocket-knife on me. In that moment, I would have given just about anything to have my gun, for just an instant, so I could have put that poor thing out of it's misery. But, at least, I was able to comfort it before it died.

Sever...again, I have nothing but compassion for you. You did the right thing buddy. Take care!

Nacht

[ 12-03-2002, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: Nachtrafe ]

<font color="#ff00cc">Hunter, LK and Wurm, we just apparently have a difference of opinion of what humane is. No biggie. You live your life, I'll live mine.

Slaughterhouses are inhumane? hmmm you know, if cows had the cognitive power of a box of rocks, it might be an issue, but there are in fact few four legged mammals less bright than your average bovine.

In the end, it is not feasable to give all animals the medical care and treatment we provide to humans. It is also unlikely that animals like deer are going to survive a broken leg (not impossible, just unlikely). Frequently when a deer breaks one leg, it ends up breaking the other opposed leg, or at least this has been my observation over the years. They die rather slowly and painfully. I tracked one for nearly nine hours before I found it in a ravine
trying feebly to climb out of it with two broken back legs. Maybe a more humane person would have summoned a helo to air lift the poor critter on a life flight to a major trauma center, but I doubt it. I put it down. </font>

And you know what they'd have done? They'd have shot it, or given it a lethal injection. Because to treat an injured wild animal (especially deer) causes it untold stress. It is not used to being indoors, or the proximity of humans, or any of the things necessary for medical treatment. So the end result would have been the same, but the animal would have gone through pain and fear and stress through being handled, put in a vehicle, etc. beforehand. Wild creatures that require recuperation in captivity often die of shock and fright before they are healed. People who work in animal trauma centres know this, and will often decide that euthanasia is the best course of action for the creature concerned, preferable than putting it through all that.

There is only so much you can do for a wild animal, especially once it has been incapacitated and is lying down. It's different for a domestic pet or livestock, they are used to humans and being handled and it doesn't cause them the same stress undergoing treatment, and they recover in an environment they are used to, with people that care for them.

Sounds to me that the kangaroo, if it was lying down with its leg festering, was beyond any medical help beyond euthanasia. Which is what Sever did for it.

Magik, I agree pretty much with your post. I do think shooting a wild creature (although I couldn't bring myself to do it personally, I'm just a big softie) and eating it is infinitely preferable to factory farming and slaughterhouses though. Not disagreeing with you about bovine intelligence mind, but rather a creature such as a deer leads a life in freedom and a quick death, rather than being crammed into barns, forcefed to fatten them up, then loaded into a truck and taken to the abattoir!

MagiK I worked at a slaughter house over here before I spoke better German. And the cows / pigs / horses yes horses always paniced when they were taken off the truck, where they had been penned up sometimes for hours without food and water. The trucks are almost always overpacked and when the animals are led off they automaticaly smell the blood and humus from the last shipment. Granted cows are pretty stupid / Pigs however are not and both knew why they were there and what was about to happen to them. That was also the worse 3 months of my life and I would go jobless before doing it again. I also don't know what in my post you are talking about. We seem, other than about the slaughter house, share the opinion it is better to put an animal down instead of letting it suffer.

[ 12-03-2002, 11:24 AM: Message edited by: Wurm ]

I've been away for a day and think i might have to clarify a few points. Firstly, i did not intend this thread to turn into an animal cruelty/euthenasia yay/nay debate. I do not condone the senseless killing of animals. Even with this opinion, i was still shaken by what i saw and heard as a result of a mercy killing that was not as swift as i intended it to be. As Cloudbringer said, i was only seeking consolation. I knew it was the right (nay, the ONLY) thing to do and yet it made me feel so cold.

Secondly, let there be no doubt to the condition of the roo in question. It WAS going to die. It may have taken a day or a week but its fate was inevitable. Even if i had've brought it home and cared for it (and believe me, i wanted to) it would have been the same. A human with one leg can use a wheelchair. Kangaroos can't even crawl.

Thirdly, with specific reference to The Hunter of Jahanna, no i did not bury it. Such is the fate of a creature that dies in the wild. Whether my intervention makes this different is irrelevant. It may return to the Earth from whence it came. No, i did not eat it. I've eaten roo meat before but am not likely to again. 'Skippy', in his prime, would have stood over two metres high and weighed upwards of 100kgs. He was now nothing more than skin and bones which i alone could have picked up easily. No meat to salvage, even if i wanted to.

Fourthly, I must redress my callous, snide remarks about the boss. At the time, i was distressed at my actions. People deal with stress differently; some get violent, some withdraw into themselves. I use humour (black as it may be). The term 'skippy' is excluded from this redress. All kangaroos in Oz are called skippy, whether alive, dead or yet to be born. This was not an attempt to make light of a grim situation.

Thankyou all for your input. I still think i should've ignored the boss, but your posts have helped me see the goodness in my actions, whereas before it was obscured by guilt.

To nachtrafe.

Your story has struck a deeper chord than my own experience. I truly empathize your situation and respect you for the care you showed the poor dog. At least its death was not without compassion.

I am sorry, but I have to reply to the "thinning the herd" comment. I do not wish to insult or offend or anything like that. I do not agree with hunting, but I understand why some people do. My complaint stems from something that happened a while back in Alaska. The government killed off a large number of wolves. This was, they said, because there were too many wolves and they were killing all the carribou (I think it was carribou...). Turns out that the wolf population was just right. They were killed so that the carribou would be OVER-populous and they could make more money from hunters who would be attracted to the region. Now THAT pisses me off.
When people tell me they hunt for the thrill of matching their abilities against the (for example) deer, I say why not use a paint gun? Why not show REAL skill and play tag? See if you can get close enough to touch it. Then let it go.

Sever, I hope you found a little of that consolation here. And you know what, I may be biased since I'm going to marry the guy, but you're right, Nachtrafe is one very amazing person. My cats think so too. ;) [img]smile.gif[/img]

Arnabas, gotta agree with you there. If that's what happened, I think it's reprehensible. There are plenty of places that dig up tourist revenue without screwing up the balance of nature on purpose. Sheesh. Photo 'shoots' are one way I've heard of and I'm sure Alaska has many things it can attract a tourist to besides hunting!

I live in Germany, hunting over here is NOT for sport. It is also not available for every person who can afford a gun like in America. To obtain a German hunting lisence one must first have a perfectly clean record. Secondly they must take a long extremely hard course and pass a colledge level exam. Finally the hunter pays close to 3000 US dollars to be issued his lisence.

Hunting is also controlled by the German goverment and every small town has a person who keeps tabs on the hunters assigned to his area and sees to the welfare of the wildlife in his area of control. Since Germany has no large predators left, we hunters are the only form of population control left. If we didn't "thin the herd" hundreds of deer would starve every winter.

I agree that what the greedy bastards did to the wolves in Alaska was a disgrace, however please do not lump all of us who hunt into that group. I spend many hours every year out in the woods keeping them clean and safe for the animals that live there by cutting deadfall and cleaning up after the hikers and kids who litter. I also have provided clear cuts in the wood with grain and corn for the deer to eat. Since all deer killed over here belongs to the state. I don't even get a chance to eat the meat from the deer I have harvested, unless I pay for it. If I chose not to buy the meat from the deer I have killed AFTER it has been checked by the local förstamt, it is then processed and provided at low to no cost for families in need.

[ 12-04-2002, 06:07 PM: Message edited by: Wurm ]

Aside from the restrictiveness it sounds like you have a pretty good system. There are almost no predators left in the areas I hunt in near to my house either. Car accidents involving deer happen almost daily. Maybe if there was a way to feed needy people extra meat from kills hunters would harvest more deer. As it is , the deer are so over populated that they are starting to become stunted from lack of food. I am afraid that in another few years they will be closer in size to dogs than to deer.

Thats already happened over here.. its a rare thing to take a deer that is over 20 kilos here.

They are about the size of a Collie or German Shepard.