Up to 100 wallabies ‘hopping about’ (From The Oxford Times)

Up to 100 wallabies ‘hopping about’

7:00pm Saturday 1st December 2012 in News

A WILDLIFE officer has said there may be 100 wallabies living in Oxfordshire after one was spotted in Witney.

Sara Pettorino, 50, who lived in Australia for 12 years, said she clipped a wallaby as she drove along Oxford Hill, Witney, yesterday morning.

She said: “I managed to hit the brakes but it still hit the car. It just continued hopping down the road towards Witney and it seemed to be fine.”

PC Simon Towers, police wildlife crime officer, said a wallaby had been killed on the A40 at Witney about two months ago.

He said: “They are more common than you think across the Chilterns and into us and they are spreading this way from Oxford.

“Originally there was a large private house over towards Chinnor or Thame and they had a collection of wallabies, and over the last 20 or 25 years some have escaped and they are acclimatising to our weather.

“We are perhaps talking about 100 over the whole of Oxfordshire.”