A wallaby has been spotted hopping around a residential estate in Gateshead – just three years after another was seen in the same area.
The roaming marsupial was filmed bounding up a street in the village of Chopwell on Wednesday morning.
Cia Christie, 13, was on her way to school when she captured the wallaby on camera outside her home.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she said. “It was 8.30am and I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
“I grabbed my phone and just started filming. It was hopping all over a grass verge outside the house. It was quite big and then it jumped off behind a fence.”
Red-necked wallabies are thought to have been in the UK about a century, imported from Australia for zoos for private collections, or as pets.
Although it is rare to see one bouncing past your house, it is not as uncommon as you may think in Chopwell. It is the second time in three years a wallaby has visited this tiny corner of north-east England (population: 3,096 humans and at least one marsupial).
Residents spotted another wallaby – or possibly the same one – bouncing through the streets of the village in July 2019. That creature, it later emerged, was one of two that had escaped from a nearby farm.
The pair were on the loose for at least three weeks after someone tampered with the farm’s fence and allowed them to leap free.
At the time, Kirsty Willis, the farm’s owner, asked local people not to feed the friendly marsupials – but recommended luring the wallabies into an enclosed area such as a garden with bread so they could be collected safely.
Willis said they would be able to survive in the wild until they could be returned.
The latest sighting has prompted speculation that the same wallaby may have found its way back to the village. For now, to the delight of locals, the origins of the Chopwell wallaby remain a mystery.
Anna Gibson, Cia’s mother, said: “We haven’t got a clue where it came from because there’s not any zoos or farm parks nearby so it could be someone’s pet which has got out.
“We got a message saying it was last seen in the woods. We haven’t seen it since but we hope it’s all right.”
