A Galapagos Diver’s First-Ever Kangaroo Was Swimming About 3km Out at Sea

A fishing crew on Boston Bay, off Port Lincoln in South Australia, pulled an unusual catch out of the water: a male kangaroo, swimming far from land, ABC Eyre Peninsula reported.¹

Crew member Jake Murray estimated the animal was about 3 kilometers offshore. The exhausted kangaroo was lifted aboard and brought back to shore, where it sat on the beach for a while before hopping away.¹

Murray said he had seen kangaroos in the shallows and at surf beaches in the area, but never in the middle of the bay.¹

Getting a kangaroo onto a boat

Skipper Ryan Smith was the first to spot it. He shouted that he thought there was a roo in the water, and the crew doubled back to make sure. There was.¹

To get it aboard, the crew opened the boat’s sea door, which lowers to near water level. They then lifted the tired animal on board by getting under its arms.¹

Once it was on deck, Murray, a diver and farmer who often deals with wild animals, hugged the kangaroo to keep it calm and to control its powerful legs.¹

Murray described it as waterlogged and knackered, Australian for thoroughly worn out.¹

“Honestly, I was just kind of cradling him there for a while and it was almost like he was having a little nap,” Murray told ABC Eyre Peninsula.¹

A first kangaroo, delivered by sea

One crew member got a more exotic introduction than the rest. Miguel Villarroel, a diver from the Galapagos Islands, had never seen a kangaroo before.¹

How it got out there is a mystery

Nobody knows how the kangaroo ended up so far from shore. Murray speculated that the calm, flat water or the tide may have played a part.¹

He also offered a second theory.

“Probably a teenager trying to impress his mates, going for a swim,” Murray told ABC Eyre Peninsula.¹

Either way, the swim ended on dry land. After its rest on the beach, the kangaroo hopped off on its own.¹