Missing wallaby found hiding in bush near zoo exhibit – News-Herald

By BETH CAMPBELL

Honey Bunch, the wallaby who went missing at the Memphis Zoo after storms rolled through Tennessee this week, has been found hiding – almost in plain sight.

“It was an area just behind the exhibit … which had been searched several times over the past 36 hours, but it was very well camouflaged and very well hidden under a bush,” said Jessica Faulk, zoo spokesperson. .

A curator saw tracks Friday morning and followed them to Honey Bunch, Faulk said.

“We suspect he was there the whole time,” she said.

Honey Bunch was taken to the zoo hospital and was evaluated by a veterinarian, who gave her a clean bill of health, Faulk said.

A creek in the KangaZoo exhibit overflowed during storms on Wednesday evening, and the exhibit was evacuated and the animals were transferred to a hospital. Honey Bunch and three other wallabies will likely return to the exhibit together in about a day, Faulk said.

Honey Bunch is 21 months old and one of the tallest of the four, she said.

Faulk said no one knows how he got out of the exhibit enclosure, but zoo officials are looking into the matter in order to prevent it from happening again.

Memphis police had been involved in the search for the missing animal, a smaller relative of the kangaroo.