Finding a marsupial-friendly city won’t be easy for a 16-year-old and her pet
Whoever called 911 Thanksgiving morning must have known that he sounded like a lunatic. “I’m not drunk. There is a kangaroo or a wallaby just ran past my house,” he told the dispatcher. “I’m not kidding. I’m not drunk.”
The caller was right. Noah, a 4-year-old wallaby, had been hopping around Platte City after escaping his owners’ backyard during a feeding. Noah made it about two blocks before he wound up fenced inside the yard of a nursing home.
While a wallaby on the lam made for great TV news on a typically eventless holiday, Noah’s escapade could also result in his never going home to Emily Wood, his 16-year-old owner. Platte City doesn’t allow its residents to own exotic animals. The code bans “any warm blooded, carnivorous or omnivorous, wild or exotic animals (including, but not limited to, non-human primates, raccoons, skunks, foxes and wild and exotic cats; but excluding fowl, ferrets and small rodents of varieties used for laboratory purposes).” The species isn’t listed by name, but the 3-foot-tall marsupial may fall into the banned category.
