They’re Not Invading—They’re Surviving

A recent comment made to me—"There are more kangaroos here than in the 35 years I’ve lived here"—was delivered with such disdain, as if the presence of kangaroos is a problem. As if I, somehow, am responsible for their visibility. But what you’re seeing isn’t an increase in kangaroos—it’s a collapse in their habitat.

When I moved here, there were five distinct, healthy mobs living peacefully in the bushland. They had food, shelter, and space. They weren’t lurking behind fences or crossing driveways—they had land that supported them. Since then, about 100 acres of their home has been incinerated in a “controlled burn”—a fast and furious blaze that destroyed their food source and likely claimed lives I’ll never be able to count.

Now, these same kangaroos are being pushed closer to human spaces. Not because they’re multiplying, but because we’ve made their wild spaces disappear.

More cars. More homes. More fences. Padlocked gates slicing through the bush because “that’s what you do” in the city. Since the pandemic, more people are relocating to once-quiet towns that now echo with motorbikes, modified cars, and rising crime. Our human footprint has expanded, but the land for wildlife has shrunk.

Access to food is limited. Water sources are vanishing behind locked gates. And when they cross paths with people, they’re blamed—for being here. But they have nowhere else to go.

So yes, you might be seeing more kangaroos. But let’s be clear: that doesn’t mean there are more.

It means they’re desperate. It means their world is shrinking. And it means we need to take a hard look at what coexistence actually looks like—because their presence isn’t a nuisance. It’s a symptom of everything we’ve changed.

We have the power to change this narrative. To see kangaroos not as pests, but as fellow beings pushed to the edge. To rethink our relationship with the land and those who call it home. That shift begins not with policy or protest, but with compassion—and a willingness to understand what’s really going on.

Change the narrative - they are not invading, they are trying to survive