According to this report, which has circulated via social media since 2015, Australian authorities have discovered a feral boy living with a group of kangaroos near Broken Hill in far western New South Wales (NSW).
The report, which features a photograph supposedly depicting the feral child, claims that after ‘ranchers’ in the area had reported seeing the boy apparently living with a group of red kangaroos, federal police officers were able to capture him and take him to a hospital for treatment. The report explains that the kangaroos had apparently taken the child into the group and looked after him.
However, the claims in the story are nonsense. No such kangaroo boy has been found. There are no credible news or police reports that support the claims in the story.
In fact, the story is a work of fiction that comes from the notorious fake-news website ‘World News Daily Report (WNDR)’. WNDR claims to be a satirical website and none of the stories it publishes should be taken seriously.
A disclaimer on the site notes:
WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle.
But, because the site presents its articles in news format, many visitors take the site’s material seriously and share it with their friends. Such fake-news stories can often go viral and circulate far and wide, duping unwary readers as they travel.
Incidentally, NSW is a state, not a ‘province’ as suggested in the report. And, landholders in the region would likely be referred to as ‘station owners’, ‘graziers’ or perhaps just ‘farmers’, but certainly not ‘ranchers’, which is a term not normally used by Australians in this context.
WNDR is just one among an increasing number of trashy fake-news websites that, between them, spew out a seemingly endless stream of drivelling nonsense. It is therefore wise to verify any strange or unusual ‘news’ story that comes your way via social media before your share it.
A quick search via an online news portal such as Google News will usually reveal if a circulating report is true. Of course, if the ‘kangaroo boy’ story were true, it would have been extensively covered by mainstream news outlets, not only in Australia but around the world.
This is not the only time that WNDR has published utter nonsense about hapless hopping marsupials. A later report on the site falsely claims that an Australian police officer was beaten up and sexually assaulted by a kangaroo.
Example
BOY RAISED BY KANGAROOS DISCOVERED IN AUSTRALIA
Broken Hill| Australian authorities have captured a feral young boy this morning, in the province of New South Wales, who had apparently been living in the wild with a group of kangaroos.
Original Source : https://www.hoax-slayer.com/boy-raised-kangaroos-fake-news.shtml