The morning Indy failed to come home

Jasper was at my feet immediately, and my stomach churned because to Indy was nowhere out be seen. This was of the ordinary.

ITwo 400g orphaned joeys, Jasper and Indy, were nursed back to health by but just as they were ready to run free ... along came a cat

WOULD like to share with you the story of Jasper and his pouch sister Indy, who came to me after they had lost their mums to car strike. Both were tiny — just over 400g. And pademelons this small are just finely furred, and needed four feeds a day — at 5.30am, 11.30am, 5.30pm and 11.30pm.

They were curled in their pouch and quite stressed to find themselves in the hands of a strange new alien mum, and so had to be coaxed, with their eyes covered for the first two weeks or so whenever I had to feed them their carefully measured milk, and when I had to weigh them, to make sure they were progressing well.

When they begin to uncoil, their personalities emerge along with their confidence, and Jasper was a typical mumma’s boy, while Indy used to be jealous that her guts of a brother was fed first, she’d jump all over me, try to

Jen Cheverton,

sit on my shoulder, try to sit on her brother, and generally end up curled in my lap, waiting impatiently for her turn for dinner.

They’d make me laugh every feed. They progressed, along with their weight gain, and moved to my pademelon daycare enclosure, where they could graze through the day in a bird netted area, and have a safe haven under cover if needed.

When they both reached 900g, I moved them into their big release enclosure, and at this stage were enjoying a morning and an evening milk feed, but otherwise, looked and acted just like little adults.

I was still very popular at milk times, and they’d come hopping and tutting over to me with enthusiasm and recognition, that mum was here with breakfast or dinner.

From this enclosure, when release time comes, I just take the gate off, and let them come and go as they please until they have the confidence to live wild and free.

Because we have wild pademelons and bennetts wallabies in our yard all the time, they had already met the locals.

They were about two weeks from release, when I took in a morning feed, if they wanted it.

Jasper was at my feet immediately, and my stomach churned because Indy was no where to be seen. This was out of the ordinary.

I found Indy, who I’d brought up over the past three months and who had gone from stressed tiny joey to a

bundle of personality and joy, ready to face the world. Her left eye was missing, as was all the skin on her face. The ground around her was bare of grass and covered with diarrhoea as fright had taken hold, as she fought for her life.

That’s how she died, at the claws and jaws of a neighbour’s cat who was allowed to hunt rabbits every day and every night. She did not deserve that terrible short life, and she did not deserve to be mutilated by a cat that someone couldn’t keep in at night, let alone day.

No doubt there’ll be some who will defend cats. I have two rescue cats of my own that have a bridge to a bush enclosure, where they can experience trees, grass, flowers, and watch the birds with that instinct that so desperately urges them to attack.

My cats have not killed a thing in their lives and are happy, healthy and loving.

However, it is a fact that they are an introduced predator, and it’s a fact that they have no place whatsoever interacting with our unique birds and wildlife.

The reason I wrote this was to try to relate the other side of the story.

Our precious little joeys don’t deserve the fate a lot of them suffer, all because an introduced species gets more love and compassion.

This is the story of my beautiful little Indy. She is one of just five joeys I’ve lost in my six-plus years of wildlife caring — all of them lost their lives because of cats uncontained in our environment.

Be it toxoplasmosis, cat bite, or cat kill. None of our little Aussie battlers deserved their horrific deaths, when it can so easily be avoided.