A reward is being offered for the safe capture of a wallaby loose in Waterford at the moment.
Young Joey (previously mistaken for his mother, Sheila) escaped from Waterford Castle about two months ago and it was feared he had been taken by some other animal.
However, he was spotted just this morning in a field near Faithlegg primary school.
WALLABY ALERT!!!! Sheila has swum over on a low tide (we think) from Waterford Castle and is hopping around fields in Faithlegg in #waterford. If you see her, contact animal services plse. And slow down on the roads. Poor Sheila…hope she’ll be ok (thanks Tralough for clip). pic.twitter.com/cCQADacZrY
— Damien Tiernan (@damienwlr) October 11, 2022
It's now thought he got spooked by something and swam across to the Faithlegg area at low tide one day.
Séamus Walsh owns Waterford Castle and has been speaking to WLR News this afternoon.
"We appreciate all the help from everybody and we're happy even, if we can capture Joey, which we will, ideally, with a fish net because they're quite hard to catch as they bounce up to six feet high.
"It wouldn't be ideal to corner them. So, what you do is bring a big fishing net and throw it over them and then they're calm enough and you just them into a box and take them away.
"But we'd be happy to give a couple of hundred euros to anybody that can put it in a yard or anywhere we can catch it.
"We do love it and of course the mom misses it and we'd like to have him back."
Sheila and Joey were purchased for Séamus's 21st birthday and were deemed a good fit for Waterford Castle because of their abilities when it comes to grass-cutting.
"The reason I sourced wallabies is because they're actually golf course friendly. So, they eat grass to a similar level as to what Tom Mulally or Mick Cleere or any of the boys up there would cut it to.
"They are perfectly harmonised to a golf course. In Melbourne, if you go golfing, you're as likely to see a mob of kangaroos or wallabies as you are people on it."
Joey's mother, Sheila, did not escape, but Séamus says his escape had quite an impact on her.
"Sheila went into a kind of hibernation, or hiding underneath the trees," he said, "It took us a while to find her but we couldn't find the baby.
"She went through a bit of depression when the baby disappeared because obviously one night he just swam across the river.
"They can travel huge distances in a short period of time so they're quite vibrant on the ground.
"But anyway, she's still there. She is still knocking around."
#whereisjoey ???? In Faithlegg…another clip from a local family from this morning BEFORE Joey the wallaby hopped back into the ‘bush’. Searches are continuing. #waterfordwallaby pic.twitter.com/sqEkpjFt0O
— Damien Tiernan (@damienwlr) October 11, 2022
After this morning's sighting, Waterford Animal Welfare were called to try and help capture Joey, but to no avail.
"There was a chap rang us - he was doing a school run this morning and spotted him in the field," Andrew Quinn told Déise Today.
"So, we went out and we searched the area and there's no sign of it at all.
"Even the field that it was in was quite secure but there was no sign of it.
"I've asked people in the locality to keep an eye out for it and any sightings at all, give us a ring straight away and we'll come straight back out."
Andrew, who's been in the animal welfare world for decades, says he's never been on a search for a wallaby before today:
"It is a grass-eater but it's coming into the wrong time of year so it needs to be got.
"If you do see it and you corner it, its defence mechanism is to scrape, to scratch, so just be aware of that.
"It is a small creature but don't think it's a soft target to just grab.
"What they're advising us to do is just to net it first and put it in a blanket."
Waterford Animal Welfare can be contacted on 087 6551152.
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