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Kangaroo killed by truck

12/10/05
RHONDA SIEBECKER ROTHE and DANIELLE CORCORAN
Capital Newspapers

MAUSTON - For Ralph Hamm, it was a "once in a lifetime thing" when he hit and killed a kangaroo with his truck Wednesday.

But kangaroos hopping around southern Wisconsin are becoming an annual occurrence.

Last winter, a 130-pound kangaroo eluded Iowa County authorities for two days until he was finally corralled in a horsebarn on a farm south of Dodgeville.

In this week's case, a 50- pound animal darted in front of Hamm's truck in his rural Mauston driveway. Hamm said he didn't have time to stop.

Where the wayward marsupials are coming from is a mystery. Tom Jodarski, a former DNR warden in Juneau County, said the kangaroo was probably somebody's exotic pet that got away.

Experts offered a similar theory for the presence of the last kangaroo, found about 60 miles away in Dodgeville.

Hamm said the kangaroo had apparently been living under a culvert on his property. The culvert area had "a lot of tracks and a line where he dragged his tail," he said, which he thought indicated the animal had been there for some time.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=64669&ntpid=3

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