A wallaby was spotted wandering around a garden in southwest England last week to the surprise of locals.
Thousands of miles away from its native Tasmania, the marsupial was seen hopping around the garden in Blackdown Hills, near the border with Somerset.
It’s not the first time the animals have been seen in England. In Exeter, Paul Peters and his daughter told DevonLive they saw a wallaby twice.
He said: ‘I was surprised when I first saw it in the field. You just don’t expect to see something like that.’
According to filmmaker Tim Whittard, the UK has seen an increase in reports of wallabies in the last decade. It’s thought a small group are breeding.
It remains unclear how the wallabies – which are native to Tasmania – entered UK wildlife.
It’s been speculated they either escaped from private owners or some may have ‘deliberately’ released the marsupials for unknown reasons.
But the marsupials haven’t had an easy time in the British Isles. A wallaby spotted in Cornwall earlier this year died after being hit by a car.
Danny Johnson told the BBC they had been driving on the A30 when he noticed the animal.
He said: ‘We’re thinking what’s going on, one of my mates gets out the car to check and then we see these legs just sort of jumping around.
‘We’re just confused; we didn’t have a clue what was going on, next thing you know police cars pull up – I just started recording… then a kangaroo or a wallaby starts jumping towards us.’
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