RSPCA helps capture one of the Highgate wallabies
An RSPCA inspector started his morning with a spring in his step when he was called out to catch one of the wallabies spotted living in Highgate Woods.
RSPCA inspector Leigh Summers was expecting to find a large rabbit or something similar when he got the call just after 7.30am this morning to go to York Rise, near Kentish Town, in north London, where a ‘large wild animal was causing chaos’.
He got there to find a crowd gathered round a tennis court where they had managed to corral one of the two wallabies thought to have been living in Highgate Woods. It is thought the animals may have been dumped by their owner or were escaped pets.
On advice from London Zoo, Leigh armed himself with a tennis net to try and wrap around the wallaby to stop it kicking out with its powerful back legs.
He said: “I had been told to handle the wallaby by grasping its tail and hold it as high as I could off the ground and as far away from me as possible to stop it finding any purchase for its legs.
“In fact, when I did grasp it the animal just hung there, relaxed, very much like a cat does when it is scruffed by its mother so I knew it was used to being handled like this.
“The biggest problem I had was untangling the netting around it when I got it back to the van.”
Inspector Summers said the wallaby was in a highly populated area where it was in danger of harming itself or road users by causing a hazard.
The wallaby will be housed in temporary boarding facilities until a permanent home can be found for it.
Populations of red-necked wallabies became established in the wild in Britain back in the 1940s. However, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 prohibits the release of red-necked wallabies as they are a non-native species.
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Notes to editors
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