Car hits kangaroo near Mauston

This just in–and not confirmed–Troy Vinson a frequent lurker on this site just called from a bar up around Petenwell to tell me that a guy named Ralph Hamm says he hit a KANGAROO Wednesday nite!
Troy says Madison and Mauston papers are sniffing around on this and that he has seen fotos of roo and damage to Hamm’s vehicle.
Sometimes fact is truer than strange. Don’t know if this far-fetched thing is a hoax…but Vinson says Hamms phone number is 608-847-6433.
Know that I am sober in writing this post, just reporting content of a phone call. Seems a little early for people to be delusional with cabin fever….but ya never know.

Let me suggest putting the decision to the KangaROO court. May I suggest the Ninth District?

I would be willing to bet the fellow that hit thre roo…is quite a Hamm.

Warning: Kangaroo hopping about
Australian import sighted south of Dodgeville; zoo expert warns of exposure
By JOHN DIEDRICH
[email protected]
Posted: Jan. 4, 2005

Cheryl Martens was at her son’s Scout meeting Monday night when she got an odd call from the Iowa County Sheriff’s Department.

He was just hopping on the highway. It was unbelievable.

Dispatchers wanted to know whether Martens, who used to work at the department, had lost her pet wallaby, a smaller cousin to the kangaroo.

They were trying to explain the slew of calls they were receiving from motorists who reported seeing a kangaroo near U.S. Highways 151 and 18 just outside of Dodgeville.

Martens’ pet wallaby wasn’t on the road; it was breeding in St. Louis. But Martens, a kangaroo enthusiast who named her 13-year-old son Joey, set out to investigate.

After two hours of looking, she and Joey spotted what looked like a deer on Highway 151. When they got closer, she was astonished to see a 41/2- to 5-foot tall, 150-pound male red kangaroo, slipping around the icy highway.

“We went out looking for him, and damn if we didn’t just run right into him,” she said. “He was just hopping on the highway. It was unbelievable.”

He hopped across the road, nearly getting hit in the other lane, and then took off into a nearby woods, as Martens frantically tried to get deputies on the scene.

As of late Tuesday, no law enforcement had seen the animal, but based on the number of calls, Iowa County Sheriff Steve Michek is convinced it was a kangaroo in his county on Monday night.

Now the question: How did the warm-weather creature land in wintry Wisconsin?

“We have no knowledge of anyone in Iowa County who would be a kangaroo owner,” Michek said Tuesday. “We think either the kangaroo came into the county on its own or was transported through Iowa County” and somehow got away. He said they’ve received no reports of a missing kangaroo.

An expert said kangaroos, which can jump 6 feet straight up and travel 30 feet in a single bound, generally shy away from humans and often come out only at night.

But officials advised caution. A Sheriff’s Department news release read, “THIS ANIMAL SHOULD NOT BE APPROACHED AS IT IS CONSIDERED DANGEROUS.”

Michek said his deputies are prepared to shoot the kangaroo with a tranquilizer if they spot it. They have contacted the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison to care for the animal if needed.

The zoos in Madison and Milwaukee were not missing a kangaroo. No accredited zoo would transport an animal at this time of year through cold conditions, said Jim Hubing, director of the Vilas Zoo in Madison.

The kangaroo, native to Australia’s bush country where temperatures generally don’t drop below the 30s, can’t survive long in Wisconsin’s January temperatures, Hubing said.

“The combination is not good,” he said. “My hope is that the animal is able to find shelter and some food and can be cared for.”

This was in the La Crosse Tribune this morning

Kangaroo ends up down under pickup in Mauston
By Rhonda Siebecker Rothe | Lee Newspapers

MAUSTON, Wis. — Ralph Hamm was caught by surprise when an animal suddenly jumped in front of his truck in his driveway Wednesday.

A bigger surprise awaited when he went to see what he had hit — and found a dead kangaroo.

The rural Mauston man said the animal apparently had been living under a culvert on his property.

Hamm said the culvert area had “a lot of tracks and a line where he dragged his tail,” indicating the kangaroo, which he estimated weighed about 50 pounds, had been there for some time.

His vehicle wasn’t damaged, but Hamm said he reported the animal to the Department of Natural Resources.

“It was out of their jurisdiction,” Hamm said he was told. “They said they would have shot it, to get rid of it for disease purposes.”

Tom Jodarski, a former DNR warden, said that in more than 20 years working in Juneau County, he never saw a kangaroo.

“I would assume somebody had acquired an exotic animal and it got away from them,” he said.

“… Bears and wolf sightings were a big deal a few years back, and somebody had an alligator for a pet, but a kangaroo? That’s a first!”

it was on the 10 o clock news today
freakin unbelievable!