This is the heart-wrenching moment a grieving male kangaroo cradles the head of his lifeless female companion as she reaches for her joey one last time underneath the shade of a mango tree.

Evan Switzer noticed the touching marsupial interaction while going for a walk on bushland property in River Heads, a coastal town close to Fraser Island in Queensland, on Monday morning.

‘I saw the male pick up the female, he looked like he was just trying to get her up and see what was wrong with her,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.

‘He would lift her up and she wouldn’t stand she’d just fall to the ground, he’d nudge her, stand besides her … it was a pretty special thing, he was just mourning the loss of his mate.’

Heartbreaking: A male kangaroo cradles the head of a lifeless mother as she reaches out for her joey on a property in River Heads, a coastal town in Queensland

‘He would lift her up and she wouldn’t stand she’d just fall to the ground’: Evan Switzer captured the heartbreaking moment while going for his regular morning walk

The mother’s lifeless body is propped up at the neck by the male – who appears to look solemnly ahead, overcome with sadness.

The baby kangaroo can do little but hold out its claws and touch its mother softly, before standing upright to her side in a protective stance.

Mr Switzer – a keen photographer who has been walking in the area with his dog twice a day for close to ten years – first noticed the kangaroos after hearing an unusual ‘thumping sound.’

He raced back home to grab his camera and returned to find the protective male in the same position.

The male kangaroo appeared very protective, chasing off any other kangaroos that came close to the limp body of the female

‘I’ve travelled around a bit and you see a lot of dead roos on the side of the road – but I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ he said.

‘The male would chase the other kangaroos that came around away – he was sort of protective over the female.’

‘The young one looked kind of confused, it would stand by the mother and then hop off and chew some grass, and then come right back again.’

Mr Switzer was unsure how the female – who had no visible wounds – ended up limp on the grass.

Mr Switzer said in ten years of walking twice a day on the property – which is filled with kangaroos – he had never seen anything like it