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Police said they chased the mysterious marsupial on foot and in
a car over the bridge before dawn before catching it in a
downtown park and taking it to the city's Taronga Zoo.
"Officers took the startled macropod into police custody ...
with the police mounted unit arriving on scene soon after to
take it to the zoo for veterinary assessment," New South Wales
Police said in a statement.
Video filmed from a pursuing patrol car showed the meter-high
wallaby, which looks like a small kangaroo, hopping across the
famous bridge.
A policeman stifled a laugh as he drove behind.
"Sydney's got the best harbor in the world, so I'd imagine he
was taking in the view," police inspector Kylie Smith later told
reporters. "We actually do have wallabies or kangaroos that jump
down the main street of Sydney."
Nicknamed "The Coathanger," Sydney's famous arch-span bridge
opened in 1932 and, with 8 traffic lanes, 2 railway lines and a
footpath and cycleway, is the main harbor crossing linking the
city with its northern suburbs.
While wallabies and kangaroos are found in both rural and leafy
suburban areas, it is highly unusual to see them in the middle
of a major city.
"I'm from the 'bush' (rural Australia), so I'm used to see them
running around all over the place but I've never seen one so
close to the city before," said a driver who gave his name as
Ray, one of several people who called Sydney radio station 2GB.
Police said the wallaby probably began its city-bound journey at
a golf club on the harbor's north shore before it was spotted
hopping south across the bridge in lane 8 at about 5 a.m. (1800
GMT Monday).
"Traffic controllers ... monitored the wallaby as it hopped
across to lane 1 and, without indicating, exited onto Cahill
Expressway then to Macquarie Street," police said in a
statement.
Larry Vogelnest, senior veterinarian at Taronga Zoo, said X-rays
showed the wallaby had not suffered any serious injuries.
"The swamp wallaby remains in a stable condition at Taronga
Wildlife Hospital's intensive care unit ... our hope is that the
wallaby will be able to be released back into the wild," he said
in a statement.
(Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Paul Tait)
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