Austr(al)ia

When I was in Salzburg, Austria, back in 1994, I noticed heaps of "no kangaroo" t-shirts and paraphenalia for sale in the tourist shoppes. At first, I didn't get it, but then dumbed down myself to realize that apparently many people confuse "A-U-S-T-R-I-A" with "A-U-S-T-R-A-L-I-A". That made me wonder if tourists actually thought that they would see koalas and kangaroos in the City of Mozart. Roos in Austria? Don't be daft!

Well, accelerate to 2006. Wild roo loose in the Land of Hapsburgs, not Holden. I wonder if I can still get one of those t-shirts?

Kangaroo on walkabout in Austria

A stun gun had to be used to catch the kangaroo

Police in Austria were pressed into action to help capture a kangaroo that went walkabout after jumping out of its enclosure near the town of St Veit. But Austrian police training does not cover kangaroo catching, and the animal spent some time exploring the snowy countryside before being apprehended.

Local police officer Joerg Fortin said the wayward marsupial just kept hopping away when they tried get hold of it.

In the end a local vet was called in to help catch it using a stun gun.

The one-year-old kangaroo, which belongs to a breeder in Tirol, was finally nabbed in a country road about five kilometres (three miles) from St Veit, in the province of Carinthia.

It is now being treated for minor injuries by veterinarian Georg Rainer, who said he was going to care for the animal for two to three weeks.