Report from Chris Smith
Island police caught on hop by wallaby mystery
By David Ross, Highland Corrrespondent, in the Herald 10 th June 2004
IT was a hop, skip and a jump away from the normal road-kill on a Scottish island. The only question that remained last night was how the
wallaby reached Islay.
The carcass was found lying beside the road to the island's airport by staff as they arrived for work on Tuesday.
Constable Donald Dolan, at Bowmore police station, said yesterday: "We don't know if it was knocked down on the road near the airport, or if it
was brought to the island as a prank." Other theories were that it had arrived on the undercarriage of a plane, or had been carried north by tides on
the Gulf Stream from the Isle of Man, where there is a colony of marsupials.
Alternatively, the finger of blame was being pointed at an island in Loch Lomond, where wallabies were introduced in the mid-1970s to establish a
wildlife park. The project and new immigrants were soon abandoned, and have since been breeding enthusiastically, often swimming to the
mainland and presenting a navigational hazard to motorists.
The answer may never be known. Islay police decided to keep their unsolved crime count down by burying the evidence.
© The Herald, 10 th June 2004
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