What do you think of this guy punching a kangaroo?

He was very foolhardy in risking severe injury to rescue his dog.

*Kangaroo

and he was probably some sort of a too brave idiot.

He is very lucky he did not get his ass kicked by the Roo. The whole story on the event puts it a much different light.

they both look dumbfounded after the punchlet. hilarious.

I think the kangaroo was about to kill the dog.

Here is a video of a kangaroo killing another kangaroo.

The choke hold looks like what the kangaroo was doing to the dog.

I don’t blame the guy. I would have tried to do worse if it were me. On the other hand, I guess kangaroos can be pretty dangerous with their feet, so I probably would have gotten disemboweled or something.

He’s a zookeeper. While roos are dangerous, I’d say he was acting on impulse rather than common sense. As @josie said, the roo was going to kill the dog. I read an article yesterday that said roos spend a moment weighing up the threat before they attack, so him quickly punching the roo on the nose was a case of getting in fast before it decided he was a threat to be attacked.

@Earthbound_Misfit should be the expert on roos here!

Right after the punch the kangaroo was all like…“da fuck” that moment made me chuckle & consequently, that’s all I got.

I agree @ucme He really rang that Roos bell!

Hey that roo was clearly saying, “Put up your dukes,” so the guy let him have it. Fair enough in my book.

Not sure I’d call myself a roo expert. The intrepid photographer in me has been known to get too close to them in the desire to capture their image while my husband screams “Lizzy! Get away from the roo!” Meh… I’m still here, and I got the shot.

He punched it, it let go of his dog, they all went their separate ways and each of them, dog, roo and man, was hopefully a little wiser.

I don’t have a problem with it.

I don’t care if the Pope is hurting my dog. I’ll stomp a puddle in anyone’s ass over my little girl.

If anything, he might not should let his dog run around where dangerous animals are. There’s a reason I don’t take my dog fishing in the swamp. She’d be gator bait…

Bad decisions all around….

@MrGrimm888, the dog was a hunting dog. My guess is they were hunting feral pigs (wild boars). They’re a problem in Australia and they aren’t native animals. The dog was wearing armour to stop it being gored by a pig. This discusses the roo’s behaviour.

Dunno if it was a female, but would have been hilarious if she was carrying a joey in her pouch & as the guy punched mama it popped up with a glorious eye level dickpunch.

@Earthbound_Misfit . I see. They hunt boars here as well. When I worked at the emergency veterinarian hospital we would get a gored dog every now and then. Usually the dog doesn’t survive. Evisceration was common.

They also don’t have any restrictions on weapons, or ammo capacity in regards to hunting wild boars here. You don’t have to use dogs if you have a modified AR-10. If possible, I recommend this gentleman not use dogs.

@MrGrimm888, I have no idea what an AR-10 is, but it’s quite possible it would be illegal here. We have strict gun laws.

I’m not into hunting at all. I believe the dogs are used to find the pigs. They track their scent and then keep the pigs at bay while the hunter comes in to shoot them. While I don’t like hunting, the numbers of feral pigs apparently outnumber humans so I can see the need to cull them. Whether the dogs are necessary, I have no idea.

^I don’t hunt either. But know many people who do. I used to sell guns at a large sporting goods store.

I love dogs (most animals really) and I hate to see them involved in dangerous activities.

The dogs are used in many different ways to hunt. Some here let the dogs corner the boar, then they lasso the pig and cut its throat. Similar strategy is employed when hunting alligators. It just seems like such a sad way for such a mighty animal to die.

But indeed, both alligators, and especially boars are too numerous here.Deer too…

FYI , an AR-10 is a AR-15 (chambered in 5.56 mm ,or .223 cal) modified to chamber a .308 ,or 30 cal projectile. It can also be modified to be full auto, instead of semi auto. You could think of it as an upgraded ,newer version of an AK-47. Hunters here will add thermal, or night vision scopes as well. When they see 8 pigs in the dark, that weapon makes short work of them…. It’s essentially a military weapon.

I would put money on that sort of weapon not being legal here @MrGrimm888. And for that I am grateful. And I’d rather see dogs not put in dangerous situations too. I can’t really say more about it, because I have no experience with hunting or using dogs to hunt.

^They shouldn’t be legal here either… But that’s neither here, nor there.

Looks like it worked out quite well. He’s a zookeeper and he intervened for his dog and did a good job. I think that the people who are writing as if Tonkins was recklessly wanting to fight with the kangaroo are wrong. It looks pretty clear to me that he approached it to get it to release the dog, but then recognized the kangaroo was starting to engage him, so he got ready to avoid getting hurt, and struck it to discourage it from attacking him, which worked. He then left.

The Taronga Conservation Society comments that they don’t approve of hunting wild animals with dogs, I agree with. I think I understand their disapproval of him hitting a kangaroo, but I’d say given the circumstances where he already was with a hunting group with dogs, and that he was striking defensively to prevent further violence and didn’t really hurt the kangaroo, that while they might be right as a conservation society to take that line, that in practical reality within the circumstances, he did fine…

Now, it is also true that it could have turned out much worse. But I’m in favor of adults being allowed responsibility to make decisions and protect their pets and take unofficially-sanctioned actions. I think it’s wrong-minded to have actions like this scrutinized and second-guessed by the whole world as if people who weren’t there and don’t have a relationship with the dog are in a fair place to judge and quibble about his choice. Especially when it turned out well for everyone and there were no consequences to assign damages to.