Wallaby on the Loose

"Watch me wallabies feed, mate, watch me wallabies feed.

They're  a dangerous breed, mate, so watch me wallabies feed."

- Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, Rolf Harris

As I said in the last post, one of the results of building your own exhibits is that, when something goes wrong, you have no one to blame but yourself.  Case in point:

I was working at a small, municipal zoo, building a series of Australian exhibits with my coworkers.  The city powers-that-be were in a hurry for results, so we made a group decision that, as each exhibit was completed, we would move the animals in and put them on display, then continue building the next part of the interconnected habitat.  We figured that it would show enough progress to keep folks off our backs while we worked.

With that philosophy in mind, we moved a small group of wallabies into their new habitat.  Then, we continued work on a bird exhibit immediately adjacent to them.  Everything seemed to be going fine.

It was a very mild winter day, which meant that a) we were unseasonably busy and b) we had relatively few keepers scheduled.  I was actually alone at the time, because it was lunch, and the other keepers that day decided to go off grounds for lunch.  Because there were so many guests on grounds, I thought it best to not take my lunch yet, but to be out where I could keep an eye on things and get some work done.  Being the lone keeper, I wouldn't have worked any of the dangerous animals like bears or big cats while I was by myself.  I figured I might as well clean up the wallaby yard, though.

I was just finishing up, pushing my wheelbarrow through the gate, when a brown streak zipped between my legs and out the door.  It was one of the young females in our group, a very tame individual who had opted to follow me out.  No big deal, I thought.  Most exhibits in the zoo were configured with a keeper area, double-door system that serves as a secondary level of contact if the animal follows the keeper out.  This wallaby had done this to me plenty of times when she was in her off-exhibit holding pen elsewhere in the zoo, waiting for the exhibit to be completed.

Except, I realized half a second later, we hadn't finished the keeper area here - it was part of the adjacent aviary construction.  Which meant that the wallaby was now loose in the zoo - and I was the only keeper.

The next half hour was a fun (for the wallaby, I guess, to say nothing of the visitors) chase as I sprinted around the zoo, alternately trying to catch the wallaby as well to get ahead of her and block her exit from the zoo - I was having terrified images of her bouncing out a gate, into the street, and under the wheels of a passing truck.  All the while, I was frantically going back and forth between my radio, trying to see if anyone was on grounds to help (it being the winter, concessions and gift shop were closed) and my phone, trying to get in touch with the other keepers to get them back from lunch.  I did manage to secure the assistance of one youth volunteer (who ran around a lot and accomplished little) and one part-time educator, who unexpectedly appeared to be terrified of animals.

The visitors, as one would expect, were no help whatsoever.  

Through dumb luck, I was able to corral the wallaby for long enough for the other keepers to get back - then we cornered her, grabbed her, and unceremoniously dumped her back in the pen.  We made an executive decision to finish a keeper area that afternoon, as soon as my pulse went back to below 200 bpm.  I called our director to let him know what had happened... and listened to him guffaw on the other end of the phone for a good five minutes.

That night, as I was grocery shopping after work, wondering what comfort food would best make me forgot the day, another keeper - one who was also in that day and had helped with the recapture - texted me a screenshot from Twitter.  Apparently, our mayor had tweeted early afternoon that he was taking advantage of the great weather to visit the zoo, and that everything looked great.  From the timestamp, it looked like he was there at the exact time that the wallaby was running amok, and never noticed a thing.