THE kangaroo’s place

BY astrid volzke, WESTERN AUSTRALIA-BASED MEDIA STRINGER

It’s 5.30 am as I drive down a dirt driveway on the outskirts of Moorine Rock. I have been invited for breakfast and I’m excited. The house yard has 20 kangaroos hopping around and as I make my way towards the front door a cheeky wallaroo reluctantly hops off the doormat to let me enter the house. Ron and Laura are in the kitchen busy prepping milk bottles, chopping apples, corn, cabbage, celery, and peanuts. They offer me a cup of tea. In the lounge room, there is a Joey sitting on the couch, not far from a 30-year-old pink and grey galah. Down a corridor is a nocturnal night jar and in a yard behind the house are two young emus called Sheila and Bruce. I’m at Parnana Pikurtu Wildlife Sanctuary in the Eastern Wheatbelt and I have come to visit ‘The Kangaroo’s Place’.

Ron Goodhill and his partner Laura Black are doing something very special on their property. They rescue, care for and rehabilitate, sick, injured and orphaned wildlife.

They do this tirelessly and are predominately self-funded. So far they have reared 60 kangaroos (Reds, Greys, and Wallaroos) at Parnana Pikurtu Wildlife Sanctuary, a name which comes from the Kaalamaya language of the Kaprun people and loosely translated means The Kangaroo's Place. They have also rescued a large variety of native birds such as emu’s, tawny frogmouths, owls, spotted nightjars, galahs, kestrels, regent parrots, falcons, magpies, honey eaters, cockatoos, and wedge-tailed eagles.

Ron and Laura have fenced a total of 120 acres for two soft release enclosures which are designed to prepare kangaroos for their release back into the wild. Kangaroos are bottle-fed up till this point, not because they need it nutritionally, but because it allows them to handle the kangaroos on a daily basis so they can eventually be safely transferred to their soft release enclosure. Ron says that they wait until the kangaroos are ‘fox proof’, in other words they keep them close to home until they grow big enough to have a better chance of survival. This is labour-intensive work and makes for a very busy morning breakfast ritual.

Breakfast at Parnana Pikurtu is a heartwarming experience. It was also my first encounter with Wallaroos. Ron describes Wallaroos as mischievous spring-loaded puppy dogs. He says they jump onto absolutely everything.

“You can be sitting down having a meal at night and they’ll jump straight onto the dinner table,” Ron says. “They will also help you do the sweeping and the mopping, well try to anyway. Raising Wallaroos is mayhem to start with but good fun”.

Ron and Laura wear many hats. Ron was a farmer in Moorine Rock for 35 years but after a number of bad seasons, made the tough decision to sell some land and turn the remainder into a wildlife sanctuary and a farm retreat. Together they started a farm stay called Nulla Nulla Farm Retreat which is unique because of its proximity to a menagerie of rescued animals. Apart from feeding and caring for rescued animals, Ron does the school bus run for Moorine Rock Primary School and Laura is a primary health nurse practitioner serving the eastern Wheatbelt. Ron is also a keen wildlife photographer, documenting the rescued wildlife on his property and creating an annual calendar to raise funds for the Parnana Pikurtu Wildlife Sanctuary.

I asked Ron why he loves what he does and his reply was simple. His biggest love, whether it’s birds or kangaroos, is when he releases them. They’ve got a second chance at life and that is what it's all about. Ron described to me the moment that they released a malnourished Wedge-tailed eagle after two months of rehabilitation. “It took off and flew up so high and we thought, you’re alright, you are free to go. You’ve made it.”