Residents of two small New South Wales towns have been left devastated after at least 14 kangaroos were mowed down by "hoons" in a hit and run incident.
Police confirmed officers attended the scene on Saturday morning in the Batemans Bay region - about four hours south of Sydney - after reports several kangaroos had been killed. Police said they are working to identify the drivers of two four-wheel-drive utilities.
"They have since been removed and initial inquiries suggest they may have been deliberately killed," a police spokesperson said.
"An investigation is underway into the circumstances and police have spoken to multiple witnesses and are examining CCTV from the area."
Investigations began when Caz Roberts - a volunteer wildlife help service WIRES - was told about the incident at 7am on Saturday morning, according to Yahoo News.
Roberts has been a volunteer for six years and has seen her fair share of horror, but this is "by far'' one of the worst incidents she has been called to.
"We've all been through a hell of a time, the whole of Australia has, especially with the fires and COVID-19," Roberts told Yahoo.
"But this area was hugely impacted by the black summer fires, so we're not really getting much of a break from it.
"For people to do this for [what appears to be] their enjoyment is really sad."
Among the five dead kangaroos, two were babies, one juvenile, and two adults, with bodies strewn across a local park in the suburb of Long Beach.
WIRES mid-south-coast-branch chairperson Janelle Renes was "exhausted" after being called to the "gut-wrenching" scene at Long Beach.
Renes returned home to find a member of the public cradling a surviving joey that was clinging to life.
"The joey was extremely cold, freezing, and very close to death," Renes told Yahoo. "But she’s getting better."
Meanwhile, in the tourist town of Maloneys Beach, the road was covered in blood after another five kangaroos were found dead.
"It was pretty horrendous," Renes told Yahoo News. "It's gut-wrenching really, we try to save as many as we can, and then some mongrels have come along and [allegedly] done that sort of thing."
