What happens when a kangaroo crosses the road? Somer, Wisconsin authorities soon found out.
Around 7am on Thursday, the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department got a call reporting that the animal was loose and hopping down 18th Street (Highway L).
Somers fire chief, Carson Wilkinson, thought he was going crazy even after he saw the unusual scene with his own eyes.
A picture of Joey the kangaroo who escaped from his petting zoo pen in Wisconsin on Thursday morning
‘I saw something brown coming out of a cornfield, and I thought at first that it was a deer, so I slowed down,’ Wilkinson told Kenosha News.
‘Then it came out in the road. It stopped right in front of me and looked at me, and it was a kangaroo. I was almost scared to call it in.’
It turns out, Joey, a five-year-old kangaroo, had escaped from the petting zoo at Jerry Smith’s Farm.
Joe Smith, the operator of the farm even saw the kangaroo outside his house, hopping down the road ten minutes before he called the vendor.
A photo of Jerry Smith’s Farm where Joey had arrived the night before
Joey and another kangaroo had just moved into the farm the night before as part of a petting zoo attraction that visits every year for pumpkin season.
The vendor brings ponies, pygmy goats, a miniature camel and this year two kangaroos as well, according to Kenosha News.
Joey must have wanted to explore his new surroundings but managed to cause some serious confusion among residents and police in the process.
Luckily, authorities were able to return Joey safely and unharmed to the petting zoo.
‘The animal-wrangler guy grabbed him by the tail,’ Deputy Nicole Sorensen told Kenosha News.
Joey arrived at the petting zoo the night before as part of an attraction that visits every year for pumpkin season
After, they put Joey in the bed of a truck and he sat quietly with two people at his side.
Smith, who was on the scene with Joey, said he was very tame throughout the ordeal and was back at the petting zoo by 8am.
It was a brief taste of freedom for Joey the kangaroo and a funny memory Smith will have forever.
Somers fire chief, Carson Wilkinson thought that the kangaroo was a deer at first. He said: ‘I saw something brown coming out of a cornfield, and I thought at first that it was a deer’
Joe Smith said that Joey was very tame throughout the ordeal. He was returned to the petting zoo unharmed