01/09/2025
Heartbreaking story.
We need more prevention for road strikes. Too many kangaroos, bandicoots, echidnas and much more, die brutal deaths on our roads every day.
The following post makes harrowing reading. As a volunteer wildlife carer in the past and now supporting an entire rehab centre (Kanyana Wildlife), reading this left me in tears cause I know this anguish, this pain far too well.
Drive carefully out there people. Look for the signs and look for the evidence on the road sides. Slow down when you see them.
Today I had the opportunity to speak in Parliament along side Sue Leanne & Vikki in regards to the “Inquiry into Wildlife Road Strike”
Thank you to Georgie Purcell - Animal Justice Party MP. Richard Welch MP. Gaelle Bood and the two other ladies which I cannot remember your name, but I will edit when I find out!
Thank you also to Laura from City of Hume for chatting with me after the submission.
She is fighting for kangaroos like this one who was hit on the new Aitken Blvd Extension in Donnybrook.
Struggling on the side of the road with 2 broken legs.
He had Died by the time i got there.
Nowhere to take his body back to nature, as temp fencing erected, All around.
It’s a bit of a read but this was what I said in Parliament today…
My name is Krysti Severi.
I am a wife. A mother. A daughter. A friend.
And I am a volunteer wildlife rescuer — a registered wildlife shelter.
I have been volunteering for nine years.
I am what we call a high-volume rescuer.
I used to rescue seven days a week — day or night.
My phone would ring at any hour — and I would answer.
But burn out has caught up with me.
My family life would suffer and my social life suffered.
My body will no longer allow me to work at that level.
I never knew how to switch off.
But now I have to.
Because this work is relentless.
Because the suffering of our wildlife is relentless.
And because the failures of our government and society are relentless.
I almost didn’t come here today.
Because I feel, nothing will ever change.
Like it will always just be us — fighting the government — while our wildlife pay the price.
We pour our hearts and souls into rescue.
We give everything.
And still — we are broken.
Financially. Emotionally. Personally.
And worst of all — the animals still suffer.
The work we do as wildlife rescuers can be soul-destroying. We see things no one should have to see.
It challenges your faith in humanity to see animals left to suffer from catastrophic injuries without help.
Every life matters, and every call for help is a chance for us to show kindness and make a difference."
We see “car crash” victims every day.
Not human victims — kangaroos.
I could show you photos that would make you dry-retch.
You would turn away.
But we can’t.
Those images live in our heads.
They replay every time we pass the place.
Every time we close our eyes.
Have you ever had a pet die in your arms?
Or made the heartbreaking decision to have a pet euthanised?
Have you ever felt a connection so strong, and a pain so deep, it settles in your chest and never really leaves?
We feel that pain too.
A joey losing the will to live.
Calling out continuously for their mother.
A call that sadly will never be answered.
It’s a haunting cry.
Out on rescues, we hold broken bodies in our hands.
We watch lives slip away despite everything we try.
And sometimes, we have to make the agonising decision to end a life to end suffering.
It’s a grief that cuts just as deeply as losing our own pets.
But unlike with pets, it happens again and again—for every kangaroo, every possum, every bird, every joey that we cannot save.
Wildlife rescuers and carers are burning out. Cases that once would have been picked up within minutes now sit on wildlife networks for hours, sometimes days. The emotional toll, the financial burden, the endless death and suffering, and the lack of meaningful support are pushing rescuers to breaking point.
We are losing rescuers at an alarming rate. And when we lose rescuers, we lose lives.
We don’t do this for praise or thanks.
We do it for the animals. But we cannot keep doing it alone.
We need awareness. We need compassion. We need government and wildlife networks to step up and support the people on the front lines. Because if we can’t keep going, the animals won’t stand a chance.
As rescuers and carers, we know these animals better than anyone.
Better than someone with a few letters after their name.
We see them at their best.
We see them at their worst.
And these animals — without a word of a lie, they can see into your soul.
It upsets me to no end to see development push forward around a mob of kangaroos who have absolutely no way out.
The laws that are supposed to protect them — to allow relocation — are an absolute joke.
Homes are built.
Fences go up.
Pushing them out onto streets and roads to take their chances with cars, dogs and temp fencing surrounding the home that was once theirs… how is that fair?
It’s their home too. We make it ours and force them out with no where to go.
And then the complaints begin:
“The kangaroos are a nuisance.”
No.
The nuisance is our failure to coexist.
And let me make this clear: kangaroos don’t understand roads.
They don’t understand cars.
They don’t understand death.
So how could they possibly know that road + car = death?
They don’t wake up and say: “I’ll hop onto the road today and let a car hit me.”
The only animal that understands that equation is a $50,000 guide dog.
And why does it understand?
Because it has been trained.
Kangaroos are not stupid.
The only stupidity lies with the human who expects them to think like us.
We need action.
High crossing areas must have large signage.
Flashing lights.
Drop in speed limits.
Clear lines of sight.
Better planning for roadsides.
New estates residents are to be educated on living with wildlife.
More and more signage with wildlife phone numbers. Changing the current signage as it is clearly not working.
We cannot keep relying on kangaroos to survive on luck alone.
And then there’s DEECA.
They need to go.
We need an independent body.
They grant me permission to raise joeys — dictate how I must raise them — allow me to spend up to $2,000 per animal.
And then — they give my neighbour permission to shoot as many kangaroos as he pleases.
Their bodies are left to either rot or used to feed our introduced pets, our cats and dogs.
Statistics are twisted to justify their slaughter.
Numbers fabricated.
Even mathematicians have proved the counts are wrong — and still the killing goes on.
I have euthanised kangaroos who were body-shot, their wounds riddled with infection.
I have seen kangaroos with jaws blown off, unable to eat or drink. Some we have helped, some we could not.
Mothers unable to feed or clean their joeys.
Joeys starving.
Wounds alive with maggots.
This is the truth.
This is the “industry” they call humane.
Their legislation orders that all pouch young must be destroyed.
Ripped out of pouches, swung by their feet, Joeys’ heads are smashed against bullbars.
Heads are stomped on.
Decapitated.
And these are the kangaroos I raised under DEECA’s own guidelines.
People overseas call kangaroos pests, vermin, giant rats and other insulting names.
At home, radio stations and TV hosts crucify them.
Celebrities mock them.
Comments on social media are vulgar
Cooking shows push their meat as “ethically sourced.”
There is nothing ethical about it.
It is unregulated.
It is cruel.
It is vile.
And beyond this cruelty, there is ignorance.
The public don’t know who to call.
Some don’t even think they should call.
That has to change.
Public Awareness is paramount!
It should be a legal and ethical law that animals that are hit MUST be called in to a wildlife organisation.
We need education in schools.
Rescue numbers on driver licences.
Wildlife awareness in learner/probationary tests.
A national advertising campaign — not hidden at 2:48 in the morning when no one’s watching — but in prime time.
We can create tasteful ads.
We have the technology.
So why aren’t we doing it?
We cry out against the Yulin dog festival.
Against whaling.
seal clubbing.
bear bile farming.
poaching.
We condemn cruelty overseas.
But here — in Australia — we are treating our native animals just as brutally.
Every single day.
Every single night.
And no one seems to care.
So what… Its just a kangaroo. One less. Plenty more
I started my Rescue page to showcase the beauty of our wildlife.
But it quickly became a place to tell their stories as they deserve to have an identity.
A place for me to grieve.
To educate.
To expose.
Its graphic and its confrontational
And I make no apology for that.
I have followers all over the world.
They are horrified at how we treat our kangaroos.
And they are right to be horrified.
We parade kangaroos as a symbol of pride.
On sports teams.
On one of the world’s biggest airline
Our Coat of Arms for sh*ts sake.
We use them to sell this country.
Ruby Roo is the Brand Ambassador for Tourism Australia. What an absolute insult!
But behind the scenes — we treat them with cruelty and contempt.
It is shameful.
It is hypocritical.
It is a national disgrace.
These animals are designed for this land.
They belong here more than we do.
More than sheep, cows, dogs, cats, or horses.
This is their country.
Their food.
Their birthright.
And yet — we treat them as disposable.
I challenge each and every one of you – and your peers – to spend just one day with us. Walk beside us.
See what we see.
Feel the weight of an animal’s suffering pressing down on your shoulders. Witness the heartbreak of the decisions we’re forced to make every single day.
If you truly understood what it takes, the sacrifices made and the toll it leaves, you would never look at wildlife rescue the same way again.
We don’t need sympathy — we need understanding, support, and change.”
This has to end.
This has to change.
And it has to change now.
Thank you.
