Gray Kangaroo

Species: Gray Kangaroo
Habitat: Eastern Australia & Tasmania
Status: Not Endangered
DAK Locale: The Tree of Life Gardens

The gray kangaroo lives in the grasslands and open woodlands of eastern Australia. It can also be found on the island of Tasmania. It grazes on grass and various plant species in the early morning and at night to avoid the often brutal heat. Grays can survive on the poor quality of grass and, in fact, eat much less than their competitors, farmers' sheep. During the heat of the day, the kangaroos will stay in the shade or lie down in holes dug up to get to the cooler dirt below the surface.

Gray kangaroos are very sociable living in groups called mobs. A mob generally consists of a dominant male, several females of breeding age and their young, and two or three younger males. However, many mobs gather together amicably while feeding. The female leaves the mob to give birth. A single joey is born about a month into the pregnancy. This 1 inch, less than a pound baby will crawl into the pouch where it may stay for another 300 days or so. In fact, no marsupial keeps their young in their pouches longer. Early naturalists thought that joeys grew directly from the mother's teat.

A gray kangaroo can jump as far as 44 feet. However, it most often travels slowly on all fours. The famous bounce only occurs when the animal is alarmed and needs to expend energy to get away. And it has a lot of endurance. One gray kangaroo was chased for 19 miles and then it swam another two miles before the chase was given up. Prior to bouncing away, the animal will alert its mob mates to the danger by smacking its tail loudly. The grays have a good sense of smell and vision to keep alert. More importantly, its large ears are flexible allowing the kangaroo to hear things coming from nearly any direction.

Gray kangaroos are big, reaching five feet in height and weighing up to 200 pounds. Although its larger cousin, the red kangaroo, is more numerous, the grays do number about 1.5 million in their territory. Still, farmers employ various techniques against the gray kangaroo who they feel use up too much of the grazing land for sheep. Farmers have built large fences to keep the animals out, but most grays are capable of bounding over the fences that were constructed. Shootings occur often. Plus, the gray kangaroo, like the American deer, cause many accidents in Australia by leaping out onto highways and oncoming traffic.