Airdate: Kangaroo Dundee
Meet the Aussie roo-carer that Britain has fallen in love with and he's coming to ABC1.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Programming
He’s a 6’7” Aussie who lives in a one-room tin shed in Alice Springs and spends
his days saving orphaned baby joeys, but since his documentary aired in the UK, ‘Brolga’ has been inundated with donations.
“I’m a bloke who lives in the bush who maybe gets six emails a month… I’ve been having six hundred in a day recently. It’s going off, it’s mad,” he says.
Episode 1 performed 29% above the slot average in the UK with 1.833m viewers.
This documentary will air in two parts on Thursday 21st March & Thursday 28th March on ABC1.
Since childhood, Brolga has been infatuated with kangaroos, turning his love of the TV classic, ‘Skippy’, into an extraordinary way of life: rescuing and raising hundreds of orphan joeys for release back to the wild.
The close and heart-warming bond Brolga forms with his babies and the mob of wild kangaroos that live with him in his sanctuary, offers a rare and captivating insight into the bizarre biology and fascinating family life of one of Earth’s most charismatic and unusual animals.
But can a man really be mother to a marsupial? And can he overcome the daily hazards that threaten him and his mob: wild dog attacks, injury, deadly snakes, searing heat, bush fires, and the dominant alpha male kangaroo Roger, who kills to protect his family?
It’s an all-too familiar scene out on the 1,700 mile-long Stuart Highway: a kangaroo lying dead on the baking roadway. We watch as Brolga stoops low over the dead female. He reaches into her pouch and gently lifts out a tiny baby joey; it’s barely breathing, but miraculously, still alive.
From there, we watch Brolga during his struggle to resurrect life from death, following the tough, round-the clock duties of being a surrogate mother to orphaned joeys like William, and hoping they can be successfully released back to the wild.
8:30pm Thursday, 21 March.
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