{"id":736501,"date":"2026-08-13T08:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T08:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/736501\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T08:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T08:54:09","slug":"disbelief-as-wallaby-spotted-crossing-road-in-bishop-auckland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/736501\/","title":{"rendered":"Disbelief as wallaby spotted crossing road in Bishop Auckland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  The suspected marsupial was spotted on Saturday (August 8) night by Gary Weatherston and his 18-year-old nephew Ryan, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenorthernecho.co.uk\/news\/local\/countydurham\/bishopauckland\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bishop Auckland<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The pair were driving on Canney Hill just before 10 pm when it hopped in front of the car and across the road.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Gary, 56, a member of The Northern Echo&#8217;s Camera Club, said: &#8220;I\u2019d just picked my nephew up from work and then we saw something in the road.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;I had to swerve a bit, and I clocked straight away what it was.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;My nephew said, &#8216;What was that? Was that a mini kangaroo?&#8217;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;It was all over in a second, and it must have hopped into the allotments, but it\u2019s just not what you expect to see.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Gary, a support worker, said he tried to find reports of a missing wallaby when he got home but couldn\u2019t find anything online.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He reported the sighting to the Wildlife Trust and UK Wallaby Sightings. group.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  An RSPCA spokesperson said: &#8220;Our advice to people who spot a wallaby in the wild is to watch from afar, enjoy the unusual sight and don\u2019t try to approach them.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Sightings should be reported to UK Wallaby Sightings, and iRecord for non-native species.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Most people may be unaware that wallabies are considered established in the wild in Britain, as a result of escaping from captivity, although they are not a native species to the UK.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Some people also keep them in private collections, so it\u2019s possible this wallaby is lost or has escaped from a private property.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Anyone who finds an injured wallaby in need of help should monitor the animal from a distance and call the RSPCA emergency line on 0300 1234 999.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The sighting comes months after an eight-month-old wallaby escaped from a farm in Consett.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The animal named Wally escaped from SCNE &#8211; At the Farm in Leadgate on May 31, which his owners said was due to him being spooked by a member of the public who climbed into the area where the animal was staying.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  After four days on the run, Wally was safely rescued and returned to his home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The suspected marsupial was spotted on Saturday (August 8) night by Gary Weatherston and his 18-year-old nephew Ryan,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-736501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}