Family lets python eat a baby wallaby

January 1, 2010 - 0 comments

Cairns, Australia -- An Australian woman who watched with her two children as a python swallowed a baby wallaby in their yard said Thursday she could not have saved the joey.

"By the time we were alerted to the situation, the wallaby was already well wrapped up by the snake," Judith Barton-Ilic told The Cairns Post.

Barton-Ilic -- with her children, Braidyn, 13, and Tiarn, 10 -- saw the snake and its prey Monday outside their home in Cooktown in northern Queensland. Her account of the mother wallaby trying to save the joey was published on the newspaper's Web site with a picture of the snake, attracting hostile comments from around Australia.

A typical comment came from a Victoria woman: "So, in 45 minutes, no supposed top of the chain animal went to the aid of the mother wallaby. Sickening!"
Barton-Ilic said she would have broken the law if she had tried to kill the snake, a 13-foot scrub python.

"People saying we should have chopped the snake's head off and hit it with a shovel are ridiculous, there are fines up here for that stuff," Barton-Ilic said. "These comments are water off a duck's back."