Wallabies escape enclosure in Belgium, sparking police chase spanning 2 countries

CBS News

3 days ago

Two runaway wallabies sparked a cross-border chase in Belgium and France, with police and firefighters hot on the heels of the fast-hopping marsupials.
Firemen captured one of the fugitives on Tuesday near the northern French city of Lille, days after the pair broke out of their enclosure in the border town of Mouscron, Belgium. But its accomplice was still unaccounted for Thursday at noon.
"The other wallaby is currently still on the run and remains nowhere to be found," the city of Mouscron said in a social media post.
The escape took place while their owner was on vacation overseas and had entrusted the care of the animals to a neighbor, said Belgian police.
"We are not combing the area to find it, it could be anywhere," a Mouscron police spokeswoman told AFP. "We are mainly waiting for a local resident who might spot him to report his location."
The bouncing duo went on the loose over the weekend and sightings soon spread across the region. Footage of the animals hopping around urban areas, at times scared by passing motorists, went viral on social media.
"Thank you for doing everything you can to find these poor animals," an internet user commented on the Mouscron police Facebook page.
The fire department in France's Nord district mused that the marsupials had "suddenly decided to explore the world around them, far from the Australian plains, closer to the urban jungle."
Firefighters in Wattrelos, France, eventually cornered one of the escapees on Tuesday evening after it ventured into the garden of a residential building.
"An anti-escape net was deployed to prevent the marsupial from making a run for it," the fire service said. "Indeed, the main fear was that the animal could cause an accident or injure itself."
It took wildlife specialists two hours to get the wallaby safely inside a cage. It was then "returned to its kingdom, that of Belgium" and freed back into its enclosure, the fire department said.
Images posted to social media by officials show the captured marsupial being put in a cage to be transported away.
Wallabies, a smaller member of the kangaroo family, are native of Australia, and the country's rugby team is nicknamed after them. Owning wallabies and other exotic animals is allowed in Belgium as long as they are fed, cared for and not mistreated.
Fugitive marsupials have made headlines in the U.S. recently. In April, a runaway kangaroo named Sheila shut down a stretch of interstate in Alabama, causing two vehicles to crash before being captured.
A few weeks later, police in Durango, Colorado, captured a kangaroo that escaped from its home. Authorities said it was the same kangaroo that escaped and hopped through downtown in October 2024, before officers captured it.