Wallaby escapes wildlife sanctuary and sends New York town on weeklong chase
A beloved wallaby escaped a wildlife sanctuary and wandered through a town in upstate New York for just over a week.
“Our beloved wallaby Mac got out last night just before 6 PM and is currently missing,” the sanctuary said in a June 16 post on Facebook, adding the location where the animal was last seen. “We believe she has stayed close but is hiding. We used thermal imagining drones last night and were always just one step behind her.”
Mac was spotted hopping across the town of Oswego after escaping G&G Animals, leading director Danny Oostdyk and the whole community on a weeklong chase to bring her back home.
Oostdyk and sanctuary staff tried several tactics to lure her home. They set up trail cameras, put out water and her favorite foods and tracked her location at night using thermal imaging drones — all to no avail.
“Mac is shy but very special to us,” the sanctuary said in the post. “Please…keep an eye out — your help means the world to us!”
Many more people got involved in the search after someone posted a Mac sighting to TikTok, Oostdyk said.
Oostdyk gave an update on the search efforts in a video posted to Facebook on June 17.
“We’ve had a lot of people calling us, a lot of people messaging us: ‘Is this our wallaby?’ Yes, it is our wallaby,” Oostdyk said in the video. “Mac will be 6 next month. She is a wonderful wallaby. She is not dangerous but she is skittish. So if you try to approach her she probably will try to run away.”
Oostdyk tracked Mac and spotted her several times over the course of the next week — but she repeatedly evaded capture, he said.
They even mapped her route to show how much ground she was able to cover in just a few evenings.
More than 50 people joined the search one evening and came “so close” to capturing Mac in several different ways, Oostdyk said.
“One of them involved me being about 5 feet from her and diving in to the mud,” he said.
A video shows the wallaby in a field facing Oostdyk as he records. Then she turns and makes a hop for it in the other direction.
“This is fascinating,” someone said in the comments on the post. “I was wondering how she travels so much. Clears 6ft every bounce.”
Finally on June 25, they were able to capture her and bring her home, Oostdyk said in a final video update.
He reflected on the many failed attempts to capture her, including trying to bait her with her favorite foods.
“Did she eat the food that she likes? Of course not!” he said. “She continued to graze and eat the food that was out there. She was living the best life that she could for this past week.”
The video shows Mac resting in a stall with straw and shavings.
“After many many days, many many hours, and very little sleep, we have successfully brought her home,” he said. “That little stinker right there, love her dearly… This little girl has made me a little bit more famous than I wish to be.”
Oostdyk plans to up security measures at the sanctuary to prevent Mac from making another break for it.
And while he said he’s glad to have Mac home safely, he’s grateful for the community’s help.
“Ultimately one of the coolest things is how the community all came together for this,” he said.
Oswego is about a 40-mile drive northwest from Syracuse.
This story was originally published June 27, 2025 at 2:50 PM with the headline "Wallaby escapes wildlife sanctuary and sends New York town on weeklong chase."
