WHERE'S WALLABY? (via Paul Cropper)

WHERE'S WALLABY?
Sam Dimmer
14 April 2010
Coventry Evening Telegraph

Trucker is caught on the hop by sighting
STREWTH! Has a wallaby been spotted in Warwickshire? A lorry driver passing through Long Itchington on Sunday night certainly reckons he saw one nibbling on grass on the outskirts of the village. The sighting comes after a spate of sightings a few miles away in Northamptonshire leading experts to believe that a colony could be thriving in the area.

Alan Guscott, who spotted the mild-mannered marsupial, said: "It was a little after midnight while driving through Long Itchington, I spotted what I first thought was a kangaroo. "I slowed for a look and realised that at about 3ft 6ins it was too small. It didn't run off even after I almost stopped. It was raining hard and it's brown coat was soaking wet. It was nibbling grass on the verge and looked at me, then carried on nibbling. It was on it's own as far as I could tell."

"My mates didn't believe me and thought I had been drinking, even though I'm teetotal. It's the first time I have ever seen one in this country."

It's not the first time a wallaby - normally found in the Australian outback - has been spotted hopping around the UK in the wild. In the 1930s five were released from a private collection and found conditions in the Derbyshire Peak District suited them. They began breeding and by the 60s a small colony had developed drawing tourists from far and wide but after a series of savage winters it was feared that the wallabies had died out.

Now several fresh sightings have been made across the UK, leading experts to suggest that wallabies may be here to stay. Kiri Charlton, education officer at Drayton Manor Park's zoo, said that their wallabies thrive in the UK climate. "We have four," she said. "And the only shelter they have is a hut with a bit of straw in it.
"There's not really any predators for them, so I suppose they could survive. It depends really on how well they were treated in the first place. If they are used to being fed then they would struggle to fend for themselves."
Christopher Lee, landlord of the Cuttle Inn, on Southam Road in Long Itchington suspected another foreign imposter might be to blame for the wallaby sighting.

"I would guess the driver saw a Muntjac deer," he said. "They do hop about a bit like a wallaby."

HAVE YOU SEEN THE MYSTERY MARSUPIAL? OR HAVE YOU SPOTTED ANY OTHER STRANGE ANIMALS IN OUR AREA? EMAIL: sam.dimmer@coventrytelegraph.net
CALL: 024 76 500 222