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Reunited (and it feels so good)

A wallaby that hopped around Awbrey Butte for five days is returned to its owner

By Kate Ramsayer / The Bulletin

Published: April 16. 2009 4:00AM PST

An Awbrey Butte resident armed with a butterfly net caught an escaped wallaby Tuesday afternoon, ending a five-day search for the pet.

Ozzy, a 1½-year-old marsupial that resembles a mini kangaroo, had been on the loose since late Friday night, said his owner, Rechell Sheehan, 20. Her roommate had thrown a party, waking up to find iPods missing, guitars on the lawn and Ozzy’s pen open and empty — the party’s “bouncer” had left the scene.

“I don’t even know what he was thinking. He probably had the time of his life,” Sheehan said of her pet, cuddling Ozzy as he nibbled her sleeve, less than an hour after the two were reunited. “He’s an adventurer.”

And his adventure was noted by others, as strange reports of a wandering wallaby trickled into animal officials’ offices over the weekend.

When it comes to critters obviously out of their element, like the wallaby or the endangered tortoise St. Charles staffers found last week, there are several places concerned Central Oregonians can turn to, including the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and humane societies.

Strange sightings

When Karen Szymanski, shelter manager with the Humane Society of Central Oregon, got a call Sunday about a 20-inch-tall wallaby hopping around near O.B. Riley Road, she was dubious at first.

“I really thought that woman was crazy,” she said.

But a colleague informed her there was, indeed, a wallaby on the loose.

“I’ve been here a long time, and this is my first wallaby call,” Szymanski said.

And the calls continued.

“The wallaby is at large on Awbrey Butte,” Sgt. Greg Owens with the Bend Police Department reported Wednesday around noon. “We’ve gotten apparently four calls on wallaby sightings this morning.”

Bend’s animal control officers get occasional calls about cougars and bears, Owens said, but this was the first wallaby he is aware of.

If animal control officers found Ozzy, he said, they probably would treat him just like a loose dog.

But Ozzy’s adventure ended thanks to a woman who first spotted him early Wednesday morning. She called the police, and they gave her Sheehan’s contact information, but Ozzy bolted as the woman approached.

He didn’t stay away for long. On Wednesday afternoon, Ozzy was lazing about on the same woman’s lawn, Sheehan reported. The woman used a butterfly net to snag the meandering marsupial.

Sheehan was posting “Missing” signs around her neighborhood at the time, having called everyone — vets, pet stores, feed stores, even the Oregon Zoo, who she thought might be able to help her track Ozzy down. She had posted an ad on Craigslist, asking people to lure Ozzy in with food and then grab him if they spotted him.

Early Wednesday afternoon, she picked up Ozzy from his capture site near Hillside Park, slipped him in a pillow case and drove him home.

“I started crying, I was so happy,” Sheehan said, sending her thanks to everyone who helped in the search. Next up — some quality cuddling time with the fuzzy mammal.

While an escaped wallaby is definitely an uncommon event, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife does get frequent calls about wildlife that doesn’t seem to belong, said Steven George, a wildlife biologist with the state agency.

“Not too many wallaby calls, but we get a lot of turtle calls,” he said.

People should call the agency if they have a question about an animal wandering in their backyard, he said.

“We can help steer them in the right direction, or take the animals and find the right place for them,” George said.

If it’s potentially a pet — and wallabies can be kept legally as pets unless a municipality or neighborhood has rules against it, he said — agency staff might advise the caller to contact animal control or the Humane Society.

If it can be released into the wild, Fish and Wildlife staffers can help relocate an animal, he said. This spring, for example, biologists will release a bull snake confiscated in the Prineville area.

Or the agency could help find another group to help.

Desert tortoise far from home

Last week, staff at St. Charles Bend were looking for anyone who could help out when they discovered a young desert tortoise, listed as threatened on the federal endangered species list.

“I was walking from my office to the main hospital building, and I noticed some movement way out on this big concrete slab,” recalled Bridget McGinn, with the hospital’s corporate communications office. “I went over there to take a closer look, and then I was like, ‘God, that looks like a tortoise.’”

McGinn previously lived in Death Valley, Calif., and Phoenix, and twice before had come across desert tortoises — who live in Southwest deserts — so was curious what the reptile was doing in between parking lots in Central Oregon.

“Obviously, he doesn’t really belong here,” she said.

Other hospital staff gathered around, and someone started making calls — to the High Desert Museum, the Humane Society, the Oregon Natural Desert Association — but couldn’t get an answer on what to do.

“You can’t leave him there, because he was moving around a lot, and he was fast — faster than you would think,” McGinn said. “There’s parking lots on either side.”

Another person ended up taking the tortoise — which some dubbed Goose, but McGinn called Twinkles — to the High Desert Museum.

The first thing museum staff did was to look at the shell markings to identify it, said Nolan Harvey, wildlife curator at the museum.

“Because it’s still a young tortoise, there’s a lot of variation, but it certainly looks like it’s a desert tortoise,” Harvey said.

And because desert tortoises are on the endangered species list, Harvey contacted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department because the federal agency has final say over what can happen with threatened or endangered animals.

While the museum will try to keep the tea-plate-sized tortoise, Harvey said, most of the time it can’t keep the animals people want to drop at its door.

“I get probably at least one phone call a day about somebody having something they want to give us,” he said, noting that one person wondered if the museum would take in a camel.

“We only have limited space, and limited manpower and limited funds to care for anything,” he said.

But if a person finds an animal they suspect is threatened or endangered or might need help, they should just leave it alone and contact the state or federal wildlife agency, Harvey said, since people aren’t supposed to touch or move listed animals.

“I always try to tell people, leave it where it is, make the phone call,” he said.

Kate Ramsayer can be reached at 541-617-7811 or kramsayer@bendbulletin.com.

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