An elderly man was killed in an apparent attack by a wild kangaroo he was keeping as a pet.
It would mark Australia's first fatal kangaroo attack in 86 years.
Paramedics were called to Peter Eades' property in semi-rural Redmond on Sunday, 250 miles southeast of Perth in western Australia.
But the kangaroo stopped them from treating the 77-year-old who had been discovered by a relative with serious injuries.
Police say they were forced to shoot the marsupial dead so the team could reach Mr Eades.
But efforts to save him were unsuccessful and he died at the scene.
"The kangaroo was posing an ongoing threat to emergency responders and the attending officers were required to euthanise the kangaroo by firearm," a police spokesman said via WA Today.
Mr Eades, a well-known alpaca breeder, was believed to have been attacked earlier in the day by the wild animal, which authorities believe was being kept "as a pet", police said.
A report will be prepared for the coroner.
Western Australia is home to the western grey kangaroo, which can grow more than seven feet from head to tail and weigh nearly 120 pounds.
Australia is home to about 50 million kangaroos, which can weigh up to 14.1st and grow to 6.5ft tall.
However, fatal attacks are rare.
The last reported fatal attack by a kangaroo is believed to have been in New South Wales in 1936, when William Cruickshank, 38, succumbed to injuries he had sustained months earlier when he tried to rescue his two pet dogs from a large kangaroo.
"His jaw was broken and he received extensive head injuries which confined him to hospital until his death," The Sydney Morning Herald reported at the time.
In July, a kangaroo left a 67-year-old woman with a broken leg and cuts after it attacked her while she was walking in Queensland.
Four months earlier in New South Wales, a three-year-old girl suffered serious head injuries in an attack.
Urban development across Australia is increasingly encroaching on wild kangaroo habitats.
