Wild wallabies are roaming an English town, breaking into a home and overtaking cars on the motorway.

A dead wallaby was found by the side of the M40 a fortnight ago and conservationists say sightings of the marsupials are becoming common in Britain. The wallabies are thought to have escaped from private collections, wildlife parks and zoos.

Last month Tony and Jean Meeghan found the front window of their basement flat in Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire smashed and covered in blood.

"There was a tremendous amount of blood on the window and the wall outside," Mrs Meeghan said.

"It looked like someone had tried to enter the flat and had injured themselves."

But DNA tests revealed the blood was animal, not human.

Local police then realised that night-shift officers had been called to the flat after four men on their way home from the pub reported seeing a kangaroo hopping across the street.

"They followed it to see what it was and must have frightened it," Mrs Meeghan said.

The Meeghans sleep at the back of the property, which is beneath an office block, and did not hear the commotion. The police assumed the building was all offices and made a note for day-shift police to call at the offices the next day.

At the time, Mrs Meeghan had just finished writing a letter to her brother, who lives in Tasmania.

"So I had to open it and add 'so you think you're the only one with wallabies'," she said.

In a separate incident, motorist Jane Martin of nearby Lower Assenden, said she was overtaken on a busy dual carriageway by what looked like a "kangaroo in full flight".

Mobs of wallabies are believed to live with herds of deer on nearby estates in the Chilterns.

• Story originally published by:
The Canberra Times / Australia - June 15.02

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