SYDNEY, Australia -- A wayward wallaby disrupted downtown traffic by bounding across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Tuesday with police in pursuit.
The adult male was captured without any apparent serious injury and is expected to be released back into the wild within days.
Swamp wallabies, which are smaller marsupials than their kangaroo cousins, are common across eastern Australia, but are rarely seen in cities.
The startled wallaby hopped across the bridge's eight lanes of traffic an hour before sunrise then turned onto an expressway on the harbour's southern shore toward the Sydney Opera House. A pursuing police car with flashing lights videoed the animal's steady bounding before a police officer captured him near the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and wrangled him into a horse float, police said.
Veterinarian Larry Vogelnest said the wallaby was "quite distressed" but he gave it a tranquilizer before taking it to the wildlife hospital at nearby Taronga Zoo.
"It had some minor grazes on its face and its hind legs," Vogelnest told reporters. "There don't seem to be any major injuries."
Vogel said he did not know where the wallaby had come from or how it found its way to the bridge.
"It's unusual obviously to have a wallaby running around on the Harbour Bridge, but there are more and more of these wallabies turning up in bush land close to the city," Vogelnest said.
A motorist who identified himself as Ray told Sydney Radio 2GB of his surprise at seeing police cars with flashing lights pursuing a wallaby.
"I'm from the bush, I'm used to seeing them running all over the place, but I've never seen one so close in the city before," Ray said.
