Kangaroo on the Loose Near Indiana Airport

Yahoo ^ | 6-28-05 | South Bend Tribune

[areeves79]

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - At first glance, Walt Temple thought the animal he saw hopping through the city was a deer. "But then, why would it be on its back legs?" he wondered.

It turns out a deer wouldn't be hopping on its hind legs. But a kangaroo would. So he called South Bend Animal Care and Control on Monday to let them know he thought he just saw a kangaroo, not far from the South Bend Regional Airport.

"I didn't believe him," animal control officer Sumyr Springfield said.

Then Springfield, who was first on the scene, saw the top of the kangaroo's head. It was time to call for backup.

Additional officers began scouring the brush and looking into drain pipes looking for the kangaroo. The search continued Tuesday, although officials don't know where the animal would have come from. The Potawatomi Zoo said it was not missing any animals and airport officials said they did not know of any runaway kangaroos.

Kim Lucas, a supervisor with animal control, said the kangaroo is likely not a danger to anyone.

"It would likely run away from people," she said.

[michigander]

Is it a kangaroo or a deer?

Posted: 06/28/2005 04:31 pm
Last Updated: 06/28/2005 04:34 pm

Story filed by NewsCenter16 Reporter Robert Borrelli

South Bend, IN - Ever since NewsCenter 16 first aired a story on Monday about the sighting of a possible kangaroo northwest side of South Bend, we've received calls and e-mails from other people who say they've seen the same thing. But animal experts aren't so sure.

After the story aired, Mary Knebel co-workers started razzing her about what she says saw Sunday.

"I may be blond but I know what a deer looks like. This was a black kangaroo!" she says.

Mary says she saw the animal about 200-feet in front of her car on the St. Joseph Valley Parkway at Snow Road.

"It was a black kangaroo. He just did what kangaroos do. They bounce! So he bounced on the side of the road. He was on my side and he bounced right in front of us. My husband can't believe he did not see it. "

Mary says it looked a lot like the kangaroos at Potawatomi Zoo but folks at the zoo are skeptical.

"Several months ago we received a report that someone had seen a kangaroo and, point of fact, it was a deer," says Julie Napier, doctor of veterinarian medicine for the Potawatomi Zoo. "Deer can jump up and down. Marsupials do not make long jumps. If they are stressed they can make short hops. They can be indistinguishable and they're both brown in color, so I just doubt that it's a kangaroo or a wallaby, but I could be wrong."

Walt Temple knows what he saw Monday and Mary Knabel knows what she saw the day before.

"I thought I was crazy but there is something out there," Mary says.

Dr. Napier is doubtful it's a kangaroo or a wallaby because both are expensive to buy and keep as a pet.

We’ve received several other reports from people on the northwest side of town with similar descriptions.

[SAJ]

Just looking for a short hop flight to Chi.

[Types_with_Fist]

Great. Another illegal alien on the loose.

[LTCJ]

Just hopping around on runways Americans won't hop on.

pr'olly just here to do a job a really big mouse won't do.

[LRS]

Late arrival?

[Maceman]

I wouldn't have thought a Captain would have been that odd of a sight at an airport!

Even a dead one?

[dfwgator]

"He's a killer, he's a killer."

[TEXASPROUD]

Paging Byron_the_Aussie!

[88keys]

More likely it was a moose...

[NRA1995]

"Tie me kangaroo down mate, tie me kangeroo down.........."

Correct lyric is "Tie me kangaroo down, sport....."

[headsonpikes]

"Sufferin' succotash - a Giant Mousth!!!"

[headsonpikes]

I see I wasn't the first to leap to that thought instantly. ;^)

[KevinDavis]

lol

[xp38]

I can say that roos are good eatin

[xp38]

I found this on the net and it may shed some light on this....

Phantom Kangaroos

It's hard to believe that Australian kangaroos could be hopping around all over the United States. But what's even harder to imagine is that these out-of-place marsupials appear to posses supernatural abilities as they rummage through the backyards of bewildered people in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Indiana, to name a few.

Phantom kangaroos have been spotted in a variety of urban and rural settings and are said to be particularly hostile. They are described to be 3.5 - 5.5 feet tall with glowing eyes and ghostly characteristics. They have been blamed for slaughtering numerous dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, and other small animals in areas with high kangaroo activity.

According to W. Haden Blackman's Field Guide to North American Monsters, the first reported phantom kangaroo sighting was on June 12, 1899 in Richmond, Wisconsin.

Interestingly, the phantom kangaroo activity appears to occur in waves. Several witnesses in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, including a Reverend W. J. Hancock, spotted the creature in January of 1934. The sightings coincided with mysterious killings of a dog and several chickens. The Kangaroo was allegedly seen fleeing the scene carrying sheep.

From 1957 to 1967, phantom kangaroos haunted Coon Rapids, Minnesota and were spotted by numerous startled witnesses who dubbed it "Big Bunny".

Hundreds of people witnessed a phantom kangaroo in Chicago, Illinois, on October 18, 1974. It kept people away with viscous displays and vanished over a fence before police could capture it.

In 1980, a kangaroo was said to haunt San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

Evidence of these phantom kangaroos is severely limited. One of the mysterious marsupials was allegedly hit by a car and killed on August 31, 1981. However, both the corpse and the anonymous driver disappeared before they could be investigated. And a fuzzy photograph taken on April 24, 1978, shows a slumping figure (which resembles a kangaroo) in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

So what are these phantom kangaroos? Are they ghostly apparitions of Australian wildlife? Or are they zoo escapees? The latter is the most likely explanation, but local zoos were contacted during a number of these mass sightings and none reported missing their kangaroos.

Plus the zoo escapee theory does not explain the "intangible" quality these creatures appear to have. Whatever these ghostly apparitions are, they have caught the attention of many Fortean researchers, startled numerous eye-witnesses, and avoided police officials who attempt to capture them.

- The Field Guide to North American Monsters by W. Haden Blackman.

[Ladysmith]

Ah crap!

NEVER NEVER NEVER DRINK COFFEE WHILE READING FREE REPUBLIC!!!

[Horatio Gates]

I see I wasn't the first to leap to that thought instantly. ;^)

LOL...Spent waaay too many Saturday morinings watching those cartoons to not think of that one 8>) My favorite:

Where there's cheeses there's bound to be mouses.

[Theresawithanh]

LOL, me, too! My favorite Looney Tunes is hard to pick, but I always liked the one where the cat and the mouse become friends, and the dog takes out the old style adding machine and goes something like "Cat won't eat mouse" (ca-chink-a-chink) "Mouse won't eat cheese" (ca-chink-a-chink) "It just don't add up!!!"

[Horatio Gates]

LOL...You're talking about these two fellers with Claude the Cat in the Cheese Chasers episode.

[Theresawithanh]

YES!!!