3. ‘Roo Rescue?

Two viral videos showing women cuddling a kangaroo have been viewed tens of thousands of times in social media posts that claim they show the aftermath of a bushfire animal rescue. “The kangaroo is so grateful that (it) just can’t stop hugging the person who saved its life!” the posts claim. But the claim is false: the videos were actually filmed at a kangaroo sanctuary located in Australia’s Northern Territory, which has not been affected by bushfires. The sanctuary, which has more than one million followers on Instagram and regularly posts pictures and videos of their rescue animals, told AFP that both videos show Abigail, a kangaroo who has lived at the sanctuary since being rescued as a joey in 2006. “We don’t have fires here thankfully,” the sanctuary told AFP in an email on January 7, 2020.