Kangaroo On The Loose Leads Police On 10-Hour Chase In Florida, Owners Still Not Found [PHOTOS]
A kangaroo was on the loose in Florida on Sunday. The notion was so farfetched that emergency dispatchers thought the slew of phone calls for 12 hours about the marsupial was part of a prank, WTSP reports.
It was only when the 200-pound male kangaroo began to approach a major road in Lacoochee, did police officers track the animal down and try to capture it. The kangaroo’s owner has yet to come forward, although authorities know of a family in the area that has other kangaroos.
"We attempted to Taser the kangaroo," Deputy Gene Smith said. "That had no effect."
The chase lasted nearly 10 hours, AP reports. The kangaroo became an elusive target for police as he kept hopping up and down a road – the kangaroo was surprisingly strong.
"It was a pretty big and extremely strong animal," Smith says. "It wasn't until I grabbed those legs that I realized just how strong they were. It doesn't look like that on TV."
Callers that spotted the kangaroo were equally surprised by the sighting and noticed that the marsupial was unaffected by the attention.
"He's having a merry old time," the caller said. "He's been on the move for quite a while tonight," the dispatcher replied.
The kangaroo was eventually captured by police who jumped on top of the animal and later brought it to a veterinarian. Smith speculates the kangaroo was hard to catch because it was drugged.
"I bounced it off of a chain link fence and it went to the ground, and I decided it wasn't going to get up," Smith said. "I was mainly worried about its back legs, and then another deputy jumped on it from there, and it was just a big dog pile after that."
This wasn’t the first unusual animal on the loose in the Sunshine State.
In Tallahassee, Scooter the llama escaped from his pen and led three county sheriff’s deputies on a chase until deputies used a Taser to subdue Scooter, AP reports. The 6-foot tall llama weighed 300 pounds and was apprehended on Saturday.
Sgt. Tony Drzewiecki from the Leon County Sheriff's Office says Scooter was unharmed after the incident, and his life returned to his regular norm.
"He was eating his favorite snacks, Triscuits, shortly thereafter," Drzewiecki told NBC Miami.
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