'Skippy Two' filmed on hop in rural Germany
February 12, 2016
Germany's Sauerland region is once again on marsupial alert, after a kangaroo was captured on camera near the town of Olsberg in the German region of Sauerland, east of Dortmund.
Town fire chief Helmut Kreuzmann had been driving with his son on Thursday morning when he spotted something "raccoon-like" by a hedge at the side of the road.
As the small marsupial began to hop away, Kreuzmann drove after it while his son began to record the sighting on his cell phone.
The pair made their video of the animal, already nicknamed "Skippy Two," available for viewing on the website of German daily newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ).
The evidence perhaps came as a relief to North-Rhine Westphalia state lawmaker Hubert Kleff, who reported a sighting of a kangaroo a few kilometers away. Kleff had already been subject to teasing on the WAZ's facebook page about whether he had actually seen a kangaroo.
Unbounded excitement
Police also confirmed a nearby kangaroo sighting a few days later by a female motorist on January 26, the same day a delivery driver for the WAZ said he had glimpsed a hopping marsupial.
Kangaroos are believed to thrive relatively well in temperate rural regions like Sauerland, finding enough food and shelter even in winter.
It's not the first time a kangaroo has been on the loose in Sauerland, with the region's original "Skippy" causing a stir last summer. Sightings were reported in several far-apart locations, including Olsberg, and even across the border in the neighboring state of Hessen.
Skippy was eventually caught and found a happy home with a family - and five wallabies - in the Hessen municipality of Medebach. The confirmed presence of a second kangaroo might help explain the widespread nature of the original sightings.
In April last year, a white kangaroo was found "really happily" hopping through a field near the town of Brühl, close to the German city of Cologne. That animal appeared to have escaped from an enclosure where it was being kept nearby, after fencing was apparently knocked down in a storm.