Sunday 4 November 2012

A wallaby in Leek

Wallabies are of course Australian citizens...normally... yet this one was definitely north Staffordshire born and bred.
Its body was found in the 1990s on the wild moors north of Leek, being then stuffed, and then mounted here in the Nicholson Institute, the museum of Leek.

The reason he was there was on the moors was, as you'd expect, that his forebears had escaped in the 1930s from a private zoo on the nearby Swythamley estate, and had formed a small wild colony - from which he is presumably descended.
It does seem amazing that these wallabies should have survived the harsh winters up there though.

Sadly, no other wallaby has been spotted for a while now, so (even though they can be notoriously shy) it has to be assumed the colony has died out.

1 comment:

  1. Want me to post some more over? We have lots to spare!

    ReplyDelete

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