05/20/2008

Skippy on the Lam

German Zoo Uses Peanut Butter to Catch Runaway Kangaroo

Toto the runaway kangaroo has been caught after a 15-day odyssey in Germany. His pursuers cunningly exploited his fondness for peanut butter during their hunt.

A six-year-old kangaroo called Toto which escaped from a wildlife park in Germany and spent more than two weeks on the run was recaptured by his keepers north of the German city of Hanover on Monday. Keepers snared the runaway marsupial after a tireless pursuit that involved trying to lure him with his favorite food, peanut butter, police said.

Staff of the Serengeti Park Hodenhagen in northern Germany had been searching for Toto day and night since he miraculously vaulted over the four-meter (13-feet) fence of his enclosure on May 4.

Keepers resorted to emotional blackmail in the 15-day hunt that followed, taking Toto's son Conrad along with them on a number of missions in a bid to coax the kangaroo back. They even smeared peanut butter on bushes and trees in places where he had been sighted.

The keepers finally got lucky on Monday when Toto was spotted eating grass in a field close to the village of Mellendorf, police said. "A member of staff carrying a net was able to very slowly approach the animal and managed to catch it," Hanover police said in a statement.

Toto was taken back to his park where an examination gave him a clean bill of health. "He's lost a little weight around his hips and he's got a runny nose but he seems to be quite healthy apart from that," vet Frank Thiersen told Hanover newspaper Neue Presse.

The Serengeti Park staff had evidently missed him. "We're going to throw a kangaroo party," keeper Kai Norden told the paper. "He'll liven up our kangaroo enclosure again. Toto loves arguing with the other males about the women."

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