Kangaroos run loose in Texas, baffling local residents: ‘Ma’am, I don’t know who I need to call’
Thankfully it was a hoppy ending.
An elusive pet kangaroo was spotted bounding through a Texas neighborhood this week, one of two that sprung free from their enclosures, baffling both locals and police responding to the bizarre call.
The Lufkin Police Department received the oddball report Sunday morning that the Australian marsupial was strolling through the streets of the small Texas town, located about 120 miles northeast of Houston.
“Ma’am, I don’t know who I need to call,” the bewildered male caller tells a dispatcher in a video released by the department.
“I’m right here on Fuller Springs Drive … and there’s a kangaroo that come up the road and crossed right here,” he said.
“Does it look like it might belong there?” the dispatcher questions.
The man said he and his wife initially thought it was a dog.
“We’re on our way to go eat breakfast, and I look, and I’m like, ‘That’s a freaking kangaroo!’ and it just starts hopping, coming down the road,” said the caller.
Video shows a kangaroo dart right in front of a police cruiser unbothered as cops responded to the area.
Police revealed there were actually two kangaroos that had escaped from the same property that day, both of which were returned safely to their owners, a department spokesperson told Fox News.
“It was a call no one could have ever predicted, proving once again that life is stranger than fiction,” the spokesperson said.
Shelby Lowery, who owns the two ‘roos, named Hopper and Red, said in a Facebook post that their escape was her “worst nightmare” and she had feared they had been injured or killed.
She told police that her husband had left their enclosure gate open.
“Thank goodness after assessing the situation, getting a headcount of all of our Roos we were only missing our two males,” she wrote, adding that she “love(s) my kangaroos and I am so happy to have them back safe, and doing well.”
Texas is one of just a few US states where it is legal to keep them as pets.