Part One Natural World

BIRDSONG OUTSIDE

In a tin shed in the desert, in the heart of Australia,

it's the start of another day for an extraordinary family.

This little kangaroo I have here is William.

His mother was killed out on the highway.

Now, a little one like this needs someone who is going to give him 24 hour care,

because if he doesn't have a caring person

to look after him, he will most likely die.

Meet Brolga.

A six foot seven Aussie and a very unlikely mum.

Some people think I'm a bit of a wacko living out here

in the bush by myself and looking after kangaroos, but I love it.

The kangaroos that are living here have accepted me as one of them,

and that gives me a great insight into the way they behave.

HE CALLS OUT

Brolga has sacrificed everything

so he can live out in the bush with his mob of kangaroos.

His wild life, living among them, is an Australian fairytale.

I grew up in the city when I was a kid.

I didn't get a chance to see kangaroos other than a show called Skippy,

where a little boy had a pet kangaroo.

I wanted that, I wanted to be that kid.

It's a childhood dream, to have a kangaroo, now I've got my own mob.

Like any family, life is full of heartbreak and joy.

Funny enough, I was Roger's mum about six years ago.

Triumph and tragedy.

They are the outback. They are the sign of freedom.

A big kangaroo bouncing off into the sunset.

And if you can ever get a chance to rescue one like I do,

it is the greatest feeling that you can get.

BIRDS SQUAWK IN THE TREES

Come on!

People ask me, "Are kangaroos intelligent?"

Of course they are, they're Australian!

Come on!

Come on!

Brolga and his roos live right in the middle of Australia,

up a dirt track, not far from a town called Alice Springs.

25 red kangaroos make up Brolga's mob.

He knows them all by name

and has known them all since they were babies.

When Roger first arrived six years ago, he was a tiny, hairless pinkie.

Now he's head of the mob.

As alpha male,

Roger has fathered all of the joeys born in Brolga's reserve.

KANGAROO MAKES TUTTING SOUND

The kangaroo that Brolga knows best is Ella, who, like Roger,

has been with Brolga since the early days of founding his sanctuary.

This is Ella, I rescued Ella about six years ago.

Ella and I have built up a great relationship over the years

and I hope there's a lot of trust between us, I'm sure there is.

It's all very exciting for me now because I've just noticed

in Ella's pouch there's a little bump at the bottom of the pouch.

Now, I've just got Ella eating a little bit of carrot

just to allow her to be a little bit occupied.

And I'm just going to have a look, is that all right?

Oh, wow, there's a beautiful little baby in there.

Are you having a look at your baby too?

Well done! Yes, here, here you go.

It's a boy, I can see it's a boy because I can see testicles.

This is a fantastic environment,

it's the perfect environment to raise a baby.

The baby is rocked by Ella's pulse.

Her blood runs through the walls of the pouch,

keeping the temperature just right.

Her milk constantly changes as the joey develops.

First feeding the immune system, then the body and brain.

At the moment the baby looks to me to be the size of my little finger.

That would mean to me it's about a month of age.

It doesn't even resemble a baby kangaroo at all.

This little baby is 24 hours a day attached to a teat,

and that baby must stay on that teat,

it can't afford to come off.

If it comes off, the baby will die.

This is an absolute privilege to see.

This is such a sensitive area for the animal,

and she wouldn't allow any of the other kangaroos to get this close,

so the fact that I can get this close is amazing.

Yes, hello, well done, you've done very well.

Thank you for letting us have a look.

Joeys like Ella's remain in the protection of the mother's pouch

until they are ready to leave at about 180 days of age.

But not all baby kangaroos are so lucky.

The desert is brutal.

Thousands of kangaroos are killed every year

on the roads of the outback.

Although they are extremely timid, the grass by the highway

is much greener than in the arid surrounds of the desert.

The roos are drawn in like moths to a flame.

It's just like a murder scene.

It hits you. The scene hits you.

Of the remoteness of the outback and these dead animals.

FLY BUZZES

It's amazing that a tiny, little baby kangaroo,

a little joey that's fragile, can survive the impact.

People wouldn't understand that a dead animal could actually

have something still alive in it,

totally uninjured, nothing wrong with it at all.

They just see death and drive straight past,

not knowing they could be driving past a little orphan

hiding away in Mum's pouch.

I often say to the mum who's lying there, "I'll look after your baby."

To me it's like resurrecting life from death.

ENGINE STARTS

MUSIC: "Pledging My Time" by Bob Dylan

# Well, early in the morning

# Till late at night

# I got a poison headache

# But I feel all right

# I'm pledging my time

# To you

# Hopin' you'll come through too... #

HARMONICA STRAINS

The first 48 hours are critical.

For a premature baby to have any chance of survival,

Brolga must re-create the warmth and security

they would have had in their mother's pouch.

The baby is extremely stressed.

It's lost its mum and it's lost the nurturing environment of the pouch.

It's extremely important for me with a newly rescued baby

to take it to bed, just to help it settle into the first few days.

It's got the breathing and the warmth of my body

and it just settles right down.

Brolga's latest arrival, William, has been handed a lifeline.

A chance to return to the wild.

This is the beginning of a six-month journey.

I'm going to raise him up and hopefully return him

back to the bush when he's older.

This is what I do.

I'm a kangaroo mum, a full-time kangaroo mum and proud of it.

Just because I'm a man, some people call me a kangaroo dad.

I'm not, I'm a kangaroo mum.

Little William is not out of the woods yet.

He's very sad and he has good days and bad days.

But I'm hoping I'll be able to get him out of that sadness,

and grow him up to be a big, healthy, strong kangaroo,

and return him back to the bush where he belongs.

BIRD CAWS LOUDLY

Over the past 20 years,

Brolga's used what he's learnt from his unique relationship

to raise and release over 200 orphan joeys back to the wild.

He's achieved this remarkable feat by becoming the mother they've lost.

KANGAROO CLUCKS

Mother kangaroos are one of the best mothers

that you'll see out there in the nature.

It's a really caring one-to-one relationship with their baby,

a real emblem of the outback.

When I look at a kangaroo mum and her baby I take notes,

I'm really looking at it.

Seeing how I can be like the kangaroo mum.

Kangaroos are marsupials, mammals with pouches.

Hop in. Good boy.

And observing how a mother raises her baby is Brolga's inspiration

for the way he fosters his own orphaned kangaroos.

Kangaroos are the animal that carries its baby around

in a pillowcase on its lower stomach.

Watching Mum carry her baby safely in the security of her pouch.

That's an amazing sight,

and it looks up to its mother with such love.

You can often see the mother and the baby licking each other's lips.

And mum is actually giving the baby saliva.

But this is also bonding, bonding between mother and baby.

So when I hold a baby up to me I often let it lick my tongue

and actually get a bit of saliva so it can drink from my mouth.

Nice and safe, yes.

I want the baby, the little joey, to accept me as mum.

And this really cements our relationship of the mother and child.

It's the little things that I do with the joeys that helps them

settle down after the trauma of losing their mum.

The strength of bond that Brolga forms with William is crucial

to his chances of survival.

When he's ready,

he'll be introduced to the kangaroos in Brolga's sanctuary,

a key stepping stone on his long journey back to freedom of the wild.

When William joins Brolga's mob he'll need to fight for his position

in the hierarchy by sparring with other young males.

Kangaroo males are kickboxers.

And, like Aussie men, they'll fight over anything.

Water, girls, sleeping holes, food... Girls.

Sometimes it looks like they're just doing it for the heck of it,

and they'll all pile in like a drunken brawl.

GRUNTING AND PANTING

Brolga used to be a kick boxer too, and that sometimes comes in handy.

KANGAROO TUTS

As head of the mob, Roger is the alpha male.

He weighs 150lbs and stands over six foot tall.

Roger is a formidable opponent.

The undisputed champion of the mob.

If Brolga bumps into Roger on his daily rounds of the sanctuary

he needs to stand his ground.

When I'm out here in my sanctuary, I'm always looking out for Roger.

Roger is the main threat out here for me,

because Roger sees me as competition for his harem of wives.

CLICKS AND TUTS

HE TUTS BACK

As soon as I stand upright, Roger will see that as a threat.

And he's ready.

I've got to be very careful

because Roger has got the power in a kick to rip a testicle off.

This is why you're not allowed a pet kangaroo.

Roger's an expert kick boxer.

Now, Roger stands my height, six foot seven tall.

Later on he's going to grow up to eight or nine feet

when he sits back on his tail.

Now funny enough, I was Roger's mum about six years ago.

Mad as a cut snake.

HE PANTS

I've got to watch Roger all the time.

A big kick from Roger, if he grabs me, I'll be in a world of trouble.

He's really trying to pronounce the muscle that he's got

and the strength that he's got.

What he'll do is he'll grab me

with his massive upper body strength, like this.

HE GRUNTS

And go for it.

This dude's got extreme power, make no doubt about it.

Whoa! I am scared of him.

I've been ripped open before by a big kangaroo.

I've got eight stitches in my stomach from one good kick

when I was about 20.

That's why you've got to be really careful.

And what he's trying to do is drive me out of his territory.

Whoa!

After playing with Roger, I don't think I came out all too bad.

Yet I did cop a bit of punishment.

I can feel on my face here I've got a couple of deep cuts.

And also on my back.

That's Roger's big hands, big hands, strong muscle,

trying to swipe me like a boxer.

No, as agro as Roger is, I love him.

I have absolute respect and admiration for him,

I understand what he's doing,

he's just being a kangaroo male who is protecting his mob.

One of my most prized possessions is a photo of Roger

when he was a baby and I always have it near, by my bed.

So, to me, he's a very important animal.

It's hard to imagine that Roger was once a tiny orphan like William.

He's been a key part of Brolga's mob from the very beginning.

I had three kangaroos, Roger, Ella and Abigail at home.

They couldn't go back to the bush.

They were all injured, all slight injuries, all fixed up now,

but at the time they were on death row.

The government said you've got a few months to find them a home

or they'll be shot.

So I had a burning ambition to make sure Roger, Ella and Abi would not

be destroyed and they could actually live a happy life somewhere.

I'm not a rich man, never have been, I'm a worker.

So I decided to go out door-knocking around to see what I could to,

raise a bit of money here and there, work two jobs.

I used to work stacking shelves in the supermarket,

and then during the day I was out washing buses for a bus company.

It took me two-and-a-half years to build it, seven days a week.

I bent 450 poles, dug 450 holes,

I put up 2.5 miles of chain mesh fencing, 10ft high.

At 9am it's red hot, it's 45 degrees.

I dug a trench 2.5 miles long

to sink in mesh to stop the dingos digging under.

I put in the shed here, it's a great place.

There's no power, there's no toilet, I don't need that stuff.

I got running water, I got a gas bottle to do my cooking.

If I want I go outside have a fire in the fire pit, that's all I want.

The most important thing I've got is my kangaroos and that they're safe.

To live out here and be a part of the outback

is what's important to me, not a beautiful house.

I feel really privileged now because my new shack has got four walls.

The last one only had three, so I think it's a bit posh.

BIRDS SQUAWK

SNEEZES

SNEEZES AGAIN

Dust has got right up Roger's nose.

SNEEZES

After months without rain, the desert is dry as a bone.

But kangaroos are beautifully adapted to cope with the harsh climate.

In the heat of the day they take to the shade of a witchetty bush

and sleep to conserve energy.

MUSIC: "Saturday Sun" by Nick Drake

# Saturday sun

# Came early one morning

# In a sky so clear and blue

# Saturday sun

# Came without warning

# So no-one knew what to do

SNORTS SLEEPILY

# Saturday sun

# Brought people and faces

# That didn't seem much in their day... #

When a mother kangaroo wakes from her slumbers,

the first thing she does is attend to the joey in her pouch.

A marsupial mother's pouch is like a child's nursery.

Inside, the joey is kept clean, warm and comforted.

But orphans like William who've been wrenched from the security

of their dead mother's pouch are incredibly vulnerable.

Little William's got a bit of a problem.

When I rescued him I noticed he's lost a bit of hair on his hands

and on the end of his nose in particular.

To stop that spreading any further, I need to give him a bath,

but there lies a bit of a problem, baby kangaroos hate having a wash.

It's all right. It's all right.

It's all right.

It's possibly mites and we can't see it with our naked eye,

so that's why I've got to give him a medicated shampoo,

so we can prevent any further hair loss.

This is going to get rid of all those nasty little things that are biting you.

The problem with losing hair and allowing it to happen

and not treating possible microscopic insect infection

is the babies spending a lot of time scratching.

As you can imagine, that means the baby is wasting energy

so it's not getting enough sleep and could lead to further sickness,

and, if we don't get on top of it, possible death.

Good boy.

That's a good little mate.

Yes, mate, you're doing great - look at that.

As a carer, someone who looks after orphaned wildlife,

I've found we have a much better success rate

if we give the babies a lot of love.

There you go.

Wrap you up nice and warm.

Good boy. That wasn't so bad, was it?

CRICKETS CHIRP

Like many human mums Brolga gets little sleep.

Until William is weaned at about one year of age,

Brolga's life, 24/7, revolves around the joey's needs.

JOEY COUGHS

I often wake up to the sound of a baby crying at the end of the bed.

COUGHING

That's when you feel your heart just sinks

because the thing's obviously crying out for its mum.

William, at the moment, he's quite young, he's on six feeds a day

so every four hours he needs a bottle.

He gets a feed at midnight, and another feed at, say, 4am.

As kangaroos are a nocturnal animal,

I've got to become a bit nocturnal as well.

SUCKS NOISILY

So to be a good kangaroo mum you've got to try and donate time,

often in the early hours of the morning,

when regular people would be asleep.

At about 2am I'll go outside,

and I love that time because everything is dead still,

it's the coolest part of the day, and the stars are amazing.

ACOUSTIC GUITAR PLAYS

When I go out early hours of the morning to give William a run,

it's the best time of the day for me.

In a 24-hour period it's my highlight, that's my time.

There's no light pollution out here, it's just pitch black.

You get to look up at millions of stars.

It's a beautiful time.

MUSIC: "Road" by Nick Drake

# You can say the sun is shining if you really want to

# I can see the moon and it seems so clear

# You can take the road that takes you to the stars now

# I can take the road that'll see me through

# I can take the road that'll see me through... #

GENTLE FOLK GUITAR PLAYS

Brolga's not the only one stargazing,

as red kangaroos are most active when night falls,

using the cool of night to graze on grass, roots, shrubs and trees.

Kangaroos have exceptional night vision.

Their big ears rotate independently and they can hear a pin drop.

Essential for detecting the presence of predators.

While the mob feeds there's always one keeping a look out.

ANIMAL NOISE IN THE BUSH

Sometimes during the night I wake to the sound of dogs.

And that's a nightmare.

As soon as I hear that I'm straight out of bed.

In the car, in the old girl, and we're off.

CAR ENGINE REVS

You can't underestimate these dogs. As a pack, they're dangerous.

If a pack of dogs gets under the fence,

they'd tear every one of Brolga's kangaroos limb from limb.

BARKING AND GROWLING

Just a couple of years ago, two grown men were ravaged

and killed by feral dogs.

A lone dog can take a joey quite easily.

Yet a pack of dogs can bring down someone as big as Roger.

Just them being on the outside of the sanctuary,

the kangaroos freak out.

It's that panic that the kangaroos go into that's really dangerous

and they could smash themselves up against the fence.

The first thing people say is, "Hey, get a shotgun."

"You want to borrow my gun?" It's like, no. I don't kill animals.

The dogs are only doing what they are designed to do.

The fact that they've gone wild

and returned to their natural instincts, I can understand that.

I have dog traps that are set. No harm comes to them.

If I ever trap a dog,

I take that dog into Alice Springs to the dog shelter,

and hopefully they'll be able to re-unite it with its original owner.

ENGINE REVS

In the wild up to 200 kangaroos, jacks, jills and joeys,

can live as a mob.

Strength in these numbers provide an early warning alarm call,

alerting the mob to the threat of predators.

Their long, hopping limbs give them the edge.

Kangaroos need company.

But at the moment William is lonely and not very well.

Since I bathed William he's not getting any better.

He's got a skin irritation and he's losing hair, I'm quite concerned.

Stress is the one thing that could possibly kill William,

because he's just not getting enough sleep.

Maybe the hair loss could be associated with stress of losing his mum,

and he still does call out during the night sometimes,

and he still is a sad little baby.

Sometimes you don't pick up on the stress levels,

you think everything's going great.

And then you wake up in the morning to make the milk

and you find one of the little babies dead in its pillowcase.

Living isolated, way out in the bush, with only very basic supplies,

there's little more Brolga can do for William.

He needs stronger medicine but, more than anything,

Brolga reckons William needs the comfort of kangaroo company.

Fortunately though, Brolga's not the only kangaroo mum in the outback.

-Come on, baby girl.

-OK, come on, you little ratbag.

I need to change these bandages again.

In the nearby city of Alice Springs live his mates, Cynthia and Anne Marie,

who are on the frontline of kangaroo intensive care.

And her dressing.

She's probably not going to have the most beautiful tail

but I'm sure when she goes back to the wild the boys won't mind.

No, they're not going to worry too much.

Between them, Cynthia and Anne Marie

have patched up thousands of orphan roos.

Because it's so small it probably doesn't need the...

Oh, you're going to go to sleep, little darling.

I should hope you are, you madam.

Off you go.

You want to come in and have your bottle?

Oh, don't look so sad about it.

You're still eating other food, are you? OK.

There's just something about them, I've become... What's the word?

I don't know, addicted's the word I'm looking for.

Yes, totally addicted to them, yes. I think they're great.

Come on, guys.

Oh, golly. I don't know.

How many have I got at the moment?

I think it's about 12... But I'm not...

Oh, no, I just got another one in today, so that makes number 13.

So 13 at the moment.

Ah, ah, ah, ah, aaah!

Ouch! That wasn't very nice.

Some people just think that we're a bit eccentric,

I suppose you'd call it,

not that I really know what eccentric is.

I suppose having them in my house

with nappies on,

I am a bit eccentric.

There we go.

Put your tail in.

Nappies I think are more for hygiene,

more than having anything else, to have them in the house.

Good boy.

Just normal nappies from the supermarket that you'd buy for your kids,

you just cut a little hole in them.

Otherwise your house would be totalled with kangaroo poop and wee everywhere.

I just think that they're the most beautiful little creatures,

and I just like the thought that you can get them back to the wild.

There you go. Come on, Stu.

There you are.

Brolga has come to see

if Cynthia can find a way of making William get better.

Cynthia is a retired nurse

and now her skills are in demand for a new breed of patient.

-Have you used any ointments of any kind?

-Nothing.

There's two here. Both anti-fungals.

This one's got a bit of cortisone in it as well.

-It's probably fungal.

-Just put it in their milk?

-Yes, put it in their milk or give it to them three times a day.

-All right, thanks.

William has new medicine to try,

but Cynthia and Brolga both know what he really needs.

In the last few weeks there's been carnage on the roads

and Cynthia is swamped.

It's good news for William though,

as Cynthia is giving Brolga two more babies to look after.

-OK, guys. There we are.

-Beautiful little girls.

They're girls. Do they have names yet?

This one's Amy and you've got Daisy.

Cool. I'll give them a good home.

You never get sick of it.

50 years later, I'm still as silly as I was.

50 years?!

I think I'll be doing it till the day I die.

Back at the sanctuary,

William is being introduced to the company of some new friends.

I now have three little orphans.

William on my left here, is now joined by Daisy in the middle

and Amy on my right, little grey coloured one.

Amy's mother was hunted and eaten...

..while Daisy's mum was roadkill, out there on the highway.

I'm wrapped, I'm wrapped for William that he's got...

some girlfriends, he's got a mob.

That's important to help out with his loneliness.

I can be with him there as much as I can,

but I want to grow him up as a kangaroo

and I only ever release kangaroos back to the bush as a group.

It would be extremely unfair to release one animal.

Many eyes and ears look out for danger in the bush,

so to have a mob be released at the end, that's my ultimate goal.

But this means triple the amount of work for me.

# Daddy worked so hard

# While Momma give us all her love

# She made the food fill the table

# And we all thanked the God above

# If I could be What my daddy was to me

# I'd pretend nearly every day I'm as happy as could be

# If my wife was even half as loving as my mother... #

A lot more pouches to wash.

A lot more milk to prepare.

It'll be a lot of work, a lot of work.

# Let me hear everybody sing after me

# Momma, I love you

# And, Daddy, I love you

# I hope my children sing to me

# Daddy, I love you

# Momma, I love you... #

There's a saying of looking after baby kangaroos -

don't step backwards, because they're always at the back of your heels.

You never get a spare moment to relax.

The babies are following you everywhere,

just like they would their mum.

The only time we can get a bit of a relax is when we all sleep.

It's only been a couple of days since Daisy and Amy joined William

and they've already bonded like brothers and sisters.

William's "kangaroo medicine" is clearly working

and his skin condition is on the mend.

# Daddy worked so hard

# While Momma gave us all her love.

# She made the food fill the table

# And we all thanked the God above. #

It's not just Brolga's babies that are growing up fast.

Ella's baby's about four and a half months old now.

This is a really great time

as far as being able to look in on the baby

because the baby has really changed.

It's gone from what looked like an alien,

something that didn't even resemble a kangaroo

to now a few months later,

something that's slowly turning into a kangaroo.

I haven't seen Ella's baby for a while,

but I found her out there in the bush,

so decided to take up some carrots

and have a look in the pouch, and man, that baby's changed.

It's got dramatically bigger.

Its eyes are very close to opening, they're just little black slits

but you can see they're bulging, just ready to open.

Whiskers have grown, eyelashes are starting to come on.

Looking into Ella's pouch is like looking into a child's bedroom.

That baby is cosy, wrapped up in bed.

Over the progressing weeks and months,

this baby's going to get bigger and bigger.

He's going to outgrow this space that he's known as his mum's pouch

and he's going to have to venture out.

Mum can't keep carrying him forever.

So that's the future for him.

Now he looks like a kangaroo, Brolga's given him a name...

Nigel.

Like all the joeys born in Brolga's sanctuary, Nigel is Roger's son.

And as alpha male, Roger lives up to his name.

If you see Roger in action checking up on his girls,

the first thing he does is go to their cloaca,

which is right near the tail,

that's the private parts for the kangaroo.

Roger licks that area, it stimulates the girl to urinate.

He then tastes it. He sort of... "Mmmm."

What he's doing, he's seeing whether she's in season,

that she's ready to breed.

If she is in season, courtship happens.

It's not straight into sex - wham, bam, thank you, ma'am.

It's a bit of a courtship going on.

When you see Roger out in the bush

and he's courting one of the girls in the mob,

he's actually really gentle.

He's such a big dude, he's strong, he's massive!

I've seen him in fights, kick the butt out of a bigger bloke,

but he doesn't take that persona into his courtship,

he's gentle, which is fantastic.

He pats her on the bottom to say, "Are you ready yet?"

She goes, "No, not yet" and moves a bit forward.

Then he'll touch again, "You ready yet?" "No, not yet."

And this goes on, often for several hours.

If it's in the morning, it can go all the way through to sunset.

And then there comes a time he pats her on the bottom

and she doesn't move on.

And to him, that's like, "Yes, I'm ready."

He's now at the top, he's got his prize,

for years and years of fights.

That's what he's fought for his whole life.

It's amazing to think that William is going to be Roger's size one day.

When he's older, William will kickbox for the right to father

his own joeys, but that's a very long way off.

Time to go to bed.

In the wild, in the heat of the day,

these kids would be tucked up asleep in the security of mum's pouch,

growing bigger and stronger on her milk.

You girls want to go to bed?

Brolga's training his joeys to improve their skills

in the tricky art of getting into old pillow cases,

the next best thing.

Amy and William are pretty good at it...

..but Daisy needs a little more practice.

All is looking good on the home front

and the odds of returning all three joeys back to the wild

become more favourable with every passing day.

Since the orphans arrived,

it's been clear skies in the outback.

But now, barrel clouds roll over Brolga's shack.

This bizarre weather pattern is rarely seen.

A warning of stormy times ahead.

A lightning strike could set the desert on fire,

so Brolga's in a desperate rush

to cut fire breaks throughout his sanctuary.

THUNDER RUMBLES

What's really concerning me

is that there's a few bolts of lightning out there on the horizon...

And if one of them hits the ground, it will set this dry bush on fire.

Get a strong wind that might be associated with a bit of rain...

we are going to be in a lot of trouble.

This place is so tinder dry at the moment, it will go off like a bomb.

LIGHTNING CRACKS

Lightning has set the desert ablaze.

A fire like this is an uncontrollable monster.

No life stands a chance.

Wind whips the fire into a tornado over 30 metres tall.

It's no wonder people call this inferno a "fire devil."

With fires like this, Brolga and his kangaroos' fate

lies with the whim of the wind.

A big bush fire is the closest thing to hell

that you'll ever experience.

If a fire did get into the sanctuary, it'd be all over.

The animals would be trapped up against the fences,

burnt alive, Ella and Roger, the joeys...

That would be, that would be the worst thing I could ever imagine.

After days on the rampage, the fire slowly burns itself out.

For now, he and his mob have escaped unscathed.

In a worst case scenario,

if one day that fire comes to the sanctuary,

that big fire, that uncontrollable demon

that's just ravishing the bush and he's coming my way,

I will take him on. I will fight him.

He's Goliath and I'm David and I will take you on,

because you're going to take my family away from me.

And I'll go down with them if I have to, fighting you all the way.

This fire may have passed,

but windy conditions from the storm have spooked the roos.

They've been on edge all day

and a single strong gust has proven an ill wind for Daisy.

Daisy's had an accident.

I was out in the garden with the joeys,

three of them at my feet...

..and all of a sudden, it's been a windy day,

but a strong gust of wind came through

and that freaked out all three of them

and they were all running around madly.

Daisy was the worst though, she tried to push through that fence

that was in your way, wasn't it?

And she ended up hanging upside down by her leg and...

..now she's left with...

..what appears to be a serious injury,

she can't put any weight down on that leg at all.

Good girl, you're doing well.

I'm gutted now.

(It's all right, it's all right.)

(It's all right, it's all right.)

If it's serious though, you know,

the animal's probably got to be put to sleep.

A little orphan like Daisy and William and Amy...

I raised them as a group

so they can all go back to the bush together and...

..I don't want to send two back and not three.

Daisy will have to be 100% fit as all three of them will be

to be able to survive in the wild

and be able to outrun their predators.

If she's not capable of being 100% fit...

..she can't go back to the bush.

And that's what I work for, to get the animals back to the bush.

Brolga's reached the limits of what he can do for Daisy.

She needs urgent expert help.

So...is it positive?

-Look, it's a severe injury.

-Mm.

It's... Well, I'll talk you through it.

-It looks like this whole joint is completely crushed.

-Yeah.

She's just got so many injuries.

I know, what can we do?

Daisy's life hangs in the balance.

Join us in the final episode to see if she makes it.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd