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Nov. 29, 2018 / 5:02 PM GMT
By Minyvonne Burke
Police in Wisconsin are searching for a driver who allegedly hit and killed a baby kangaroo named Lulu and ran over the owner’s foot as he was attempting to catch the animal and bring it back home.
The Shawano County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post the incident happened around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the town of Waukechon.
The baby kangaroo had escaped from an outside enclosure on Sunday, pet owner Rita Mondus posted on Facebook.
Sheriff Adam Bieber said the couple found the kangaroo on Porter Road on Tuesday, and Rita Mondus’ husband, John, began trying to coax it close enough so he could capture it. He told the sheriff’s office that as he tried to get hold of his pet, a pickup truck drove by.
John Mondus tried waving his arms to signal for the vehicle to stop but the driver kept going, striking the man in the chest with the truck’s side mirror and running over his left foot, police said. The kangaroo was hit by the truck and killed.
The man told deputies that the driver of the truck, a woman believed to be in her mid-20s, stopped the vehicle up the road and yelled: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” before driving away.
“Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office,” Bieber said.
The Monduses own more than 70 animals, local news outlet Wearegreenbay.com reported, saying the family has their “own miniature zoo.” Lulu was kept in a four-foot enclosure on the couple’s property.
Rita Mondus told the local news outlet that the fence was tall enough to keep the baby kangaroo inside, but somehow Lulu was able to hop over it.
“Never in a million years would I have thought she would’ve jumped that. Some big kangaroos can, but being a baby and having her live in the house she’s never challenged heights,” she said. “She has never jumped in a chair, on my lap, on the bed, anything like that. She was not a jumper.”
Now, the Monduses are grieving their beloved pet.
“It’s heart-wrenching and heartbreaking and hurts my heart that my baby that I raised forever is gone,” she told Wearegreenbay.com.