Quokka

If I could have any pet at all I’d have a quokka.

I once heard Tim Flannery say in a radio interview that they make excellent pets and that we would be doing them a favour by bringing them into our homes. Flannery reckons that a sure fire ticket to species survival is domestication. You don’t hear much about cows, horses, cats, dogs or pigs being on the verge of extinction, do you?

So there you have it. I wants a quokka.

quokka2.jpg

21 comments

  1. janet on #

    awwww.

    alice has a book called “diary of a wombat.” in it, the wombat concludes “have decided that humans are easily trained and make quite good pets.” perhaps this intelligence should be passed on to the quokka community.

    good scrabble word, also.

  2. Cat Sparks on #

    CUTE! I’d get one only my cats would probably eat it.

  3. dragonfly on #

    very cute!! my cats wouldn’t eat it, they’d very likely be terrified of it. (i have scaredy cats. 😛 )

  4. calliope on #

    i want one! they’re even cuter than a dog 🙂

  5. chrisbarnes on #

    i agree. native animals should be pets (under properly managed conditions etc blah blah) and then we’d still have plenty of bandicoots and bilbies and such. I for one would like a pademelon, though a quokka would also be cute.

  6. David Moles on #

    And it’s illegal to pet them? Unfair!

  7. Dess on #

    *gasp* i want one!

  8. Kenina-chan on #

    Awwwww! It is so cute!

  9. Kadie-Wa on #

    OMG!! sooo cute! Holy cow, those are adorible!! Aw…cute!

    Are they only in Australia?

  10. Mike on #

    As a lapsed West Australian it’s my duty to report that quokkas are native only to Rottnest Island near Perth, named by Dutch sailors who landed in the 18th century. The sailors thought the quokkas reminded them of an animal that may have been found in the hull of the ship…Guess which. Rottnest is the essential place to go for post-high school celebrations. Like now. Beautiful beaches.

  11. Lydia on #

    awwww!

    It looks like a little mini kangaroo!

  12. Rosalie (no, seriously) on #

    OMG!!!! so adorable!!! I want to kidnapp it and kiss it and dress it up in a bonnet!!!

  13. Mary Elizabeth S. on #

    ooh, ooh, i want to help ensure the survival of quokkas, too! i’d like a girl one, please.

    ~mary

  14. robin cave on #

    Justine, I think you’ll find there is a law in New York State banning quokkas on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays… plus you would need a good supply of whitchety grubs to feed them.

  15. sylvia_rachel on #

    oh! the cute! 🙂

  16. MooseGuy on #

    I’ve been to rottnest. i was so close to sneaking one into my backpack. they’re SO ADOWABLE!

  17. Erin on #

    I want one for a pet, too.

  18. Mike on #

    Yet more quokka sightings: I’m reading Where is Here? 350 years of exploring Australia edited by (ta-dah!) Tim Flannery. Willem de Vlamingh, the first white fella to land on Rotto in 1696 observed “there are few if any birds to be seen and no animals except a kind of rat as large as a common cat, whose dung is to be found all over the island”. But of course they weren’t called quokkas then, were they?

    Weird. Quokkas, like busses. None for ages then suddenly they’re everywhere.

  19. Katie on #

    oh my god, they are so cute!!!

Comments are closed.