Kangaroo scarer

Now we know what we should be lining the roads with to avoid the carnage of kangaroo collisions! Via ABC comes a report on a study that revealed kangaroos are repelled by dingo urine:

Dr Parsons says a chemical in the urine scares the kangaroos. "After trying a series of essential oils and scary sounds, optical illusions, we actually presented dingo urine to a group of 10 kangaroos and the response pretty well startled us because the owner of Roo Gully has hand-reared many of these joeys and she hasn't had a response like this in 10 years, so we thought 'well maybe we've serendipitously arrived at some conclusion'," he said.

I guess it's just the completely instinctive fear of Australia's alpha-carnivore by its alpha-herbivore, even though dingoes rarely prey on kangaroos.

On another note, I wonder if it would repel parking inspectors too? I'd gladly splash some on my car tyres.

Categorised as: nature
Technorati Tags: dingo, repellent, kangaroo, revegetation, Australia