A wallaby has been spotted skipping through the Cornish countryside – months after it appeared on a nearby industrial estate.
Residents of the ancient market town of Liskeard reported seeing the marsupial – native to Australia – jumping along a busy road.
Scott Weller, owner of Original Cornish Pastries, said he noticed while driving to work that he initially thought it was a dog.
Mr Weller said there were several cars behind him and he decided to follow the animal because he was concerned it might be hit.
He said: ‘But then I realized it was jumping and it was a wallaby on the loose.’
The manager recalled stopping next to the wallaby before saying to him, “Hello, you’re not from around here, are you?”
The marsupial then disappeared down a side road towards the local cooperative.
“It was a bit sad that he was there alone because there wasn’t much to eat because of the heatwave we’ve had,” Mr Weller said.
Residents of the old market town of Liskeard reported seeing the marsupial, native to Australia, jumping along roads and onto a secondary school playing field. The animal is depicted here
Scott Weller, owner of Original Cornish Pastries, said while driving to work he noticed at first he thought it was a dog
Mr Weller said there were several cars behind him and, worried the animal might be hit, he decided to follow it
“I just thought, ‘Poor guy, he’s lost.'”
Mr Weller reported the sighting to police on 101, although the call handler initially struggled to understand what he was saying.
“I said to her, ‘There’s a wallaby jumping down the street,’ and she replied, ‘The Australian animal, like a little kangaroo? OK, OK,'” he said.
The wallaby has reportedly been sighted elsewhere in Liskeard.
A recreation center employee reportedly spotted him on the high school playing fields this weekend.
Devon and Cornwall Police said the animal was gone when officers arrived.
A spokesperson added: ‘We were called to a report of a wallaby seen in Dean Street, Liskeard, shortly before 6am on August 24. Officers carried out an area search but were unable to locate the animal.”
The incident comes just months after Cornish residents reported a ‘strange’ encounter with the animal – when it was spotted wandering around an industrial estate.
The wallaby was spotted hopping around an industrial estate in Cornwall months earlier
The bizarre sighting left residents stunned after a local zoo confirmed ‘all our wallabies were responsible’
The bizarre sighting left locals baffled after a local zoo confirmed that ‘all our wallabies are known’, leaving the mystery surrounding who owned it or where it came from unsolved.
Neil Hardyman was on his way to work at an industrial estate in Liskeard, just off the A390, at 6am last Wednesday when he spotted the wallaby who looked lost and noticeably out of place.
He filmed the unusual encounter and his friend Darren Marlow shared it in a local Facebook group.
Mr Hardyman said: ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it.’
And a wallaby was previously captured on camera looking unfazed as it moved along the A39 near Newquay at around 10.30pm on August 22, 2024.
Henry Hallam, 23, from Truro, managed to capture images of the animal on his phone. At the time, he said it “stopped to stare at us” before continuing.
Henry said: ‘We were driving through Fraddon and suddenly slowed down as this kangaroo hopped along.
‘He stopped briefly at the car lights before continuing his journey.
‘The kangaroo acted like nothing was happening, and he was supposed to be there.
‘He stopped to give us a look and continued on his way. How strange.’
Sadly, the marsupial that Mr Hallam had seen and filmed was later found dead on the side of the road after being hit by a car.
The incident was reported to Devon and Cornwall Police, who said the dead animal was found dead on the side of the A39 on August 26 and was dropped off at a local vet.
Others have been seen mainly in east Cornwall over the years.
Previously, experts predicted that wallaby sightings would become more common in the British Isles.
In recent years the hopping mammals have been spotted in Devon, Cornwall, Loch Lomond in Scotland, the Chiltern Hills in Oxfordshire and in Nottinghamshire. A historic colony in the Peak District is thought to have become extinct.
The animals may even be breeding in the wild, according to an expert who has been tracking sightings of the invasive species for years, meaning the sight of a mother marsupial with joeys in tow could become common in Britain.
It is believed that marsupials that roam freely in Britain and surrounding areas are also red-necked wallabies known as Bennett’s wallabies (macropus rufogriseus).
They resemble small kangaroos and can grow up to 91 cm tall. The females breed from the age of one year and bear one young – although they can support several at a time.
Collectors and zookeepers brought the animals to Britain from Australia sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century.
But Dr Anthony Caravaggi, a lecturer in conservation biology at the University of South Wales, says those who brought the animals to Britain were unaware of how elusive and cunning they are – and as a result were unprepared for their escape.
“Wallabies are very popular not only in large zoos but also in petting zoos, but they are very good at escaping,” he previously told the Daily Mail.
‘They can dig and jump well, and they are good with their feet: they can open latches. This puts them in rural areas, which is not that different from their natural habitat in Tasmania.”
Five are believed to have escaped from a private zoo at Roaches Hall in the Peak District during the Second World War. Some also escaped from Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire in the 1950s.
And four were deliberately released in Scotland in 1975 on an uninhabited island in Loch Lomond – where a house has since been controversially allowed to be built by former Desert Island Discs presenter Kirsty Young and her husband Nick Jones.
Escapes from game parks, nature reserves and private collections would explain why wild wallabies have been spotted all over Britain – especially in recent years.
