Remembering Roger the ripped kangaroo
World-famous for muscles, cranky demeanour
Roger, the muscular kangaroo whose bodybuilder’s physique turned him into an internet sensation, has died. He was 12.
The 6-foot-7, 200-pound kangaroo lived at a secluded reserve in the Australian outback but rocketed to global celebrity in 2015 after photos surfaced online of him flexing his considerable biceps and holding the twisted remains of a metal bucket he’d crushed with his front paws.
Chris Barns rescued Roger in infancy from the side of a road in northern Australia after a driver struck and killed his mother. The caretaker announced the animal’s death in a video posted to Facebook on Saturday.
“It’s a very sad day here today,” said Barns, who owns and operates The Kangaroo Sanctuary in the remote town of Alice Springs.
“Roger was our alpha male for many years. He grew up to be a kangaroo that people from all over the world have grown to love as much as we love him,” Barns said. “We’ll reflect on his life today and for many years to come.”
Back in 2006, Roger was a tiny joey when Barns discovered him in his dead mother’s pouch, in dire need of care and years away from growing to the size that made him one of the world’s most popular animals.
Barns reared Roger by hand and soon decided to build his sanctuary to house Roger and other young orphaned kangaroos. In time Roger established himself as the pack’s dominant male — and attracted the notice of social media users everywhere, starting when the sanctuary posted a photo to Facebook in 2015 of Roger wielding a metal feed bucket that he’d crumpled through sheer strength.
“Better the bucket than me! Ha ha,” read the accompanying caption.
Barns viewed Roger as a great friend, but in his heyday, the Herculean kangaroo was also his handler’s chief tormentor. In a 2016 clip from Kangaroo Dundee, a National Geographic documentary series about Barns’ work at the sanctuary, Barns is shown ambling down a dirt path on crutches after he injured his knee sprinting away from Roger in hopes of avoiding a fight.
“Roger locked eyes on me. He wanted a piece of me — there’s no doubt about that. I bolted. I was running faster than Usain Bolt to get away from him,” Barns said, recalling how he tried to cut away from the charging kangaroo and caught his foot in the ground.
“Roger is a bit like a delinquent son. He’s always aggressive,” Barns added, acknowledging that a single blow from the kangaroo’s arms or legs could seriously hurt or even kill him.
“But Roger’s my best mate. He’s part of me as I hope I’m a part of him. He’s what the sanctuary’s all about.”
Barns told Buzzfeed Australia in 2015 that Roger’s biceps and triceps were akin to a human bodybuilder’s. To woo female kangaroos, males must be adept wrestlers and kickboxers; they build strength as a matter of necessity by engaging in hand-to-hand combat. In the National Geographic clip, the narrator explains that Roger was truculent toward Barns because he viewed him as a threat to his “harem” of wives.
“There are no single girls in the bush,” Barns said to Buzzfeed. “They’re all under the care of one dominant male, so these guys need to be tough to survive.”
Roger was harder than all of them, but in the last years of his fame and his life he became more genial and easygoing. His vision dimmed and he developed arthritis. He started to let Barns pat him on the body.
At 12, his death was in line with the red kangaroo’s life expectancy of about 12 to 15 years.
The last photo taken of Roger showed him idling on the ground as he waited to be fed.
A couple of years ago, the sanctuary published another video on Facebook of Roger sprawled on his back in the dirt. It was late one afternoon, and he’d just polished off a substantial meal of grain. He was still, aside from the occasional tilt of his head from side to side.
It was lovely to watch him lie there, Barns said from behind the camera, to see him calmly enjoying the day as the world ticked by.
“Love you, Rog,” Barns said.
Roger was buried at the sanctuary to remain close to home, Barns said.
ROGER LOCKED EYES ON ME. HE WANTED A PIECE OF ME.