Caring for roos better for star than first kiss
HIS best friend is a joey and he lives in a tin shed in the Outback, but somehow this Aussie animal rescuer won the hearts of Britain — or at least its women.
Brolga, aka Chris Barns, gave up life in Perth to rear baby kangaroos in the Outback. He was then catapulted to fame in the UK as the star of a BBC documentary series, Kangaroo Dundee (which aired on ABC1).
‘‘I don’t know how many marriage proposals there have been — around the 100 mark,’’ says Barns, who has just released his first book, Kangaroo Dundee.
Barns, 40, a former zookeeper with no television background, battled for years to establish the Kangaroo Sanctuary in Alice Springs.
‘‘It was never a goal of mine to get on TV or write a book,’’ he said. ‘‘I never thought about it.’’ But since appearing in the two-part documentary (he’s recently filmed the third series), he’s received thousands of dollars in donations via his website, kangaroo sanctuary.com.
His 36ha wildlife reserve is not expensive to run, and if ‘‘the funds keep coming in, we’ll share it around to other animal sanctuaries’’.
Barns’s grand plan is to build an animal hospital, which ‘‘needs a lot of funds, but we’ve raised enough to get the animal ambulance’’.
‘‘I’ve been able to buy a reliable truck,’’ he said.
‘‘I needed something that I could put an orphan camel in the back.’’
The wildlife warrior’s newest baby is Cameron, a calf that lost his mum in a recent cull, in which the animals were shot and left to rot.
Barns prefers not to discuss animal culling, emphasising he’s neither an environmental campaigner nor a protester, but he does bemoan the waste of the meat.
‘‘The camels upset me because the animal is wasted and left to rot in the desert, whereas with the kangaroos, at least we are utilising them,’’ he said.
‘‘But I’m looking after orphans and I’m not a protester to save the world or save every living thing.’’
Caring for kangaroos is the most rewarding experience he’s had, Barns says, ‘‘even ahead of kissing a girl for the first time’’. And that raises the question: Is there a Mrs Kangaroo Dundee?
‘‘I don’t go too much into my private life, but yes, I do have a partner, and she’s Australian.’’