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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Conor Coyle

Search for wallaby missing in Co Tyrone continues as financial reward offered

An undisclosed financial reward has been offered up by the Co Tyrone man searching for an escaped wallaby.

The Australian native marsupial escaped from an enclosure in Glenpark Estate near Gortin on Sunday evening shortly after arriving at the park.

Local search teams are continuing to attempt to locate the wallaby, which comes from the same family as the kangaroo.

READ MORE: Co Tyrone man ‘brought the best out in everyone’, funeral hears

Glenpark Estate owner Richard Beattie told Belfast Live a financial reward would be offered to those who have information on the wallaby’s whereabouts.

“We’ve drawn a map with a half a mile radius around us trying to find where it might be. It’s an awful task,” Richard said.

“We want it back again and are offering a financial reward for anyone who knows where it is. We have no doubt it will turn up but it’s just a matter of where and when.

“It’s so noticeable, you’re not going to see this and think that that’s a normal thing so we are encouraging everyone just to keep an eye out.”

The Gortin man added the search was proving difficult so far, and he believes the wallaby is hiding somewhere because it is scared.

“We are just keeping on searching for it. Where we are here is right in the middle of the countryside.

“There are thousands and thousands of acres of land here and you’re looking for something which is two foot high.

“It could be in the sides of hedges, it could have gone into the Gortin Glen park which is thousands of acres of woodland. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.

“We have a few drones up flying to see if there is anything we can see that way. There are a lot of people out walking locally to try and find it.

“If you went near them they will just sit down on the ground and sit still, they don’t jump and run like a dog would for example.

“We’re hoping that it has just been startled and is hiding in a hedge somewhere. There hasn’t been much movement in terms of sightings so far.”

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