{"id":140766,"date":"2025-09-13T10:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T10:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/140766\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T10:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T10:27:08","slug":"white-wallaby-rescued-from-side-of-the-road-in-dartford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/140766\/","title":{"rendered":"White wallaby rescued from side of the road in Dartford"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

Wallabies are primarily found in Australia (stock photo)<\/p>\n

A white wallaby has been rescued and reunited with its owner after being found on the side of a road in Kent.<\/p>\n

Kent Police said officers were called to Trolling Down Hill in Dartford at about 09:30 BST on Friday to a report of the animal in the area.<\/p>\n

“Officers attended to ensure the safety of road users and of the animal,” the force added.<\/p>\n

“Enquiries were completed and the wallaby was safely reunited with its owner shortly after 10am.”<\/p>\n

Wallabies are primarily found in Australia and nearby islands, and are members of the macropod family of marsupials, along with kangaroos.<\/p>\n

They are typically small to medium-sized and have powerful hind legs that they use to bound along at high speeds and jump distances.<\/p>\n

A research paper in 2020<\/a> by Holly M. English of University College Dublin and Anthony Caravaggi of the University of South Wales looked into wallabies in the UK.<\/p>\n

They believed wallabies were likely first brought to the UK for zoos as well as for private collections in the late 19th Century.<\/p>\n

From then, it is believed that during World Wars One and Two some were released into the countryside<\/a> as people were unable to look after them.<\/p>\n

Helen Pearson, head of animal studies at Suffolk Rural, which has its own wallabies<\/a>, said they could survive “quite well” in the UK.<\/p>\n

“They live in shrubland out there, so as much as you think Australia is quite hot, they cope quite well in our climate,” she explained.<\/p>\n

“They’re really hardy animals.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images Wallabies are primarily found in Australia (stock photo) A white wallaby has been rescued and reunited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-140766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}