Escaped kangaroo punches cop in the face as its captured after four days
The saga of the escaped kangaroo has come to an end as the animal was safely captured and returned to its handlers - but not before punching one of the officers trying to detain it in the face.
The female kangaroo was being transported to a zoo in Quebec, Canada, when the delivery driver stopped at the Oshawa Zoo in order to "let the kangaroos stretch their legs" on Thursday. The marsupial bolted from the truck and made its way toward the hilly landscape of northern Oshawa.
Then, the kangaroo was spotted hopping all over the nearby Canadian countryside, with residents getting videos of the creature stomping through the forest. Finally, her adventure came to an end when she suddenly found herself surrounded by Durham police, who grabbed her by the tail and called her handlers.
READ MORE: Kangaroo on the run for four days after escape from delivery truck destined for Canadian zoo
The officers managed to take her into custody safely, even after the boxing match. Staff Sgt. Chris Boileau said that officers on patrol spotted the marsupial around 3 a.m. on a rural property in north Oshawa. They were "able to keep eyes on it" for nearly four hours, finally surrounding her at 6 a.m.
Furious chimp launches bottle at girl filming him leaving her bleeding at zoo"It's something that he and his platoon mates will be remembering for the rest of their careers," he told CBC Toronto. All of the officers were uninjured, despite the punch. And the kangaroo was safely transported to the Oshawa Zoo, where she underwent a medical exam.
After looking through body cam footage, as the officers were trying to reassure the animal it appeared to get spooked and jumped back, Sgt. Joanne Bortoluss told CP24.
“[It] may have had some contact with the officer but there’s no injuries to the officer,” Bortoluss said, adding they were able to calm the kangaroo down until their K9 unit arrived.
"We're going to keep her here for a little while longer, let her rest up and make sure she is safe," Cameron Preyde, the supervisor and head keeper at the Oshawa Zoo and Fun Farm in Ontario, told CBC.
“She is resting, she is warm, she is well-fed, she has got fresh water and I think she is much happier now than she was over the past few days,” Preyde said in an interview Monday.
During the kangaroo's amazing adventures, she was spotted hopping along Winchester Road south of Highway 407, according to Team Chelsea, a pet search group that received several phone calls about the native Australian animal. Doug Scott wasn't home at the time, but a neighbor called him to tell him that a Kangaroo was at his place.
Volunteers made their way there, and she was almost caught when she was cornered in Scott's backyard, but she managed to escape. Scott told how he became concerned about the animal over the weekend with the threat of cold and coyotes in the area.
Two women with expert animal knowledge even showed up at their address to speak to Scott to see if they were able to help track the animal down.
Scott asked: “How do you track kangaroos?” The women explained that if the kangaroo is still alive, she is likely sheltering somewhere to regain her energy and stay warm. Scott marveled at how the animal managed to escape the high walls of his barn.
Cameron Preyde, park supervisor at the Oshawa Zoo was at the barn when the animal made a dash for escape and explained that it dodged and hopped west. The animal was pursued on foot and through a thermal drone.
Scientists plan to ‘de-extinct’ the Dodo and release it back into the wildThis weekend, as the kangaroo hunt was ongoing, Preyde told media: “I’m just doing everything I can to get this thing back. It’s a pretty innocent creature. Sometimes they can be jerks, but yeah, I’m just trying to get this thing back."
“We have a happy ending here,” Dolf DeJong, CEO at the Toronto Zoo, told CP24 Monday morning. “[The kangaroo] is back in human care, unharmed.”