Killer kangaroos stories abound throughout history. Here are a handful of them as reported in the newspapers of the day from the last 145 years, and with a very important lesson to be learned. I told a version of this story live on radio 4WK.

First of all, down in the Wombat Ranges in Victoria just after the Kelly Gang had their last stand thereabouts in 1880, it seems that the wildlife was in revolt. There was a Mrs Bridget Phelan who was riding her horse into town when her dog stuck up an old-man kangaroo and the two animals went to battle. The dog was having the worst of it, so Mrs Phelan got off her horse and the kangaroo turned on her, slicing her open with frightful cuts all over her body which in the end killed her.

And next we go to Wantabadgery which is east of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales. In 1881, a young man named William Ludwell took a Miss Webster on a kangaroo shooting date that went horribly wrong. The couple encountered an old man kangaroo which went straight for Miss Webster and attacked her. While Miss Webster and the kangaroo fought toe-to-toe, the boyfriend Ludwell instead of going to his girlfriend’s rescue, he rode out of there at a gallop to save himself.  Fortunately, the girl’s father came onto the scene and saved his daughter, but not before one of her legs was broken and one of her ears was torn completely off. Needless to say, young Mr Ludwell and Miss Webster never got married.

Next to Ipswich, Queensland, on the old road to Warwick. In 1894 there was a Robert Bennett whose father once worked for the 8th Duke of Manchester. On this morning, the younger Mr Bennett was driving a cow along the road when he was confronted by an old man kangaroo. The cow refused to go on, and so Bennett went to chase the old man away. But the kangaroo attacked him and a full-on street fight ensued. The kangaroo would have completely gutted Bennett had it not been for a young lady who intervened. She caught the kangaroo by the tail which allowed Bennett to roll out of its clutches. The kangaroo then nonchalantly hopped away. Bennett’s life had been saved by that young lady.

Next outside of Mt Isa, Queensland, there was a kangaroo shooter by the name of Jack Alexander. This was in 1937 just after Alexander’s own brother had been found alone and dead in the bush. Alexander failed to return from his day’s shooting, so a search party went out. They followed the tracks of Alexander’s horse, then footprints made when he dismounted, and what they found was shocking. There, lying dead in a pool of blood, was a kangaroo with its throat slit, and beside it was the body of Alexander, also dead, and with his knife still in hand.

The last story is again in Queensland, this time in Toowoomba in 1913, when a young man named Kenneth Upton was entertaining a lady visitor at his home.  Upton took her inside to show off his pet kangaroo which he kept in a wire-netted room. He went in to make a bed for the animal. But the kangaroo attacked him and an almighty battle broke out. If it wasn’t for timely assistance by his lady friend, Upton would have been another fatality. He spent weeks in bed recovering, and again needless to say, there’s no record of the couple ever being married any time soon after.

So of these five kangaroo attacks, there were two human fatalities, and in all the others the men were only saved by their lady companions.

The history lesson here gentlemen is to choose your dates wisely if you intend mixing it with kangaroos.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO VERSION OF THIS STORY ON RADIO 4WK.

Photo credits:
Kangaroo, 2025 – Harold Peacock.
Charred ruin of Glenrowan Hotel shortly after it was burned down during the last stand of the Kelly Gang, June 1880 – National Archives of Australia.
Wantabadgery War Memorial – Monument Australia.