Jane Cowan, For the love of roos (Doco/Photojournalism (2019))

By the dirt roadside Manfred Zabinskas drags a kangaroo into the long grass, stoops over. With a spray can he marks a giant pink cross, a signal to other rescuers that the animal has been checked. It’s a motif repeated on roadsides around Australia. "I don’t know how many thousands of animals I’ve put down,” says Victoria’s most experienced kangaroo rescuer. "I'm sure I kill more kangaroos than most hunters." This one is a middle-aged female. Not old, not young. She’s one of an estimated 4 million native mammals killed every year on Australian roads, according to a recent paper by researchers from the University of Sydney, published by the CSIRO. Her injuries included a broken pelvis, impossible to treat. Euthanasia was the only option. While the 'captive bolt' device delivers instant brain death, the heart takes several minutes to stop beating. Zabinskas keeps one palm pressed against the roo’s chest as long moments pass. The shadow feels suddenly colder. “You do wildlife, you get nine bad ones out of every ten,” says Zabinskas. “You tell yourself, ‘Ok, I couldn’t save this animal but I was able to give it a good death.’”

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