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Roaming Berlin, a Wallaby on the Loose

And it's so far proving elusive to police
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Sep 29, 2025 12:45 PM CDT
Roaming Berlin, a Wallaby on the Loose
A different loose wallaby in Dallas in 2019.   (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

A kangaroo—well, a wallaby to be precise—is on the loose in Berlin. City police say any passersby who spot it should keep their distance, but an eye on it, too. Chief Inspector Martin Halweg told the AP in an email on Monday that Berlin police are no longer tailing the meandering marsupial because it's not believed to pose a threat to public safety—for now. Passersby tipped off police late Sunday morning about the animal on the run in the western Spandau area of Berlin. Officers were dispatched to try to catch the wallaby, which is a smaller relative of a kangaroo, but it darted into a forest, and the trail was lost.

Police don't have special equipment for capturing kangaroos, only blankets or snares used to catch free-roaming dogs, Halweg said. He said a video posted on Facebook that shows a wallaby hopping down a dark street, then pausing to lick its paws as a woman's voice in the background expressed surprise, appeared to have been taken around the time the animal was considered to be missing. German media reported that the wallaby, about 3 feet in height, belonged to a private owner, and the circumstances of its escape were not immediately clear.

"Berlin police recommend that if you see the animal, notify police or the Berlin Animal Catcher," Halweg wrote. "They also advise keeping your distance and maintaining visual contact with the animal so that emergency personnel can approach it." The city's police don't keep records on lost animals, Halweg said, but he's never run across a kangaroo hunt before in his more than 30 years of service: "Such cases are indeed very rare."

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