Kansas Kangaroo Makes Another Unscheduled Hop

The animal bouncing along 199th Street in Bucyrus, Kansas, was first mistaken for an injured deer. This was a reasonable diagnosis until someone looked more closely and noticed that the deer was, in fact, a kangaroo.

Cameras outside Blue Valley Tractor Supply captured the unexpected traveller on Thursday, Aug. 20. The business later shared the surveillance footage on social media over the weekend, giving viewers the rare opportunity to watch a marsupial commuting along a rural Kansas road without any visible appointment.

There is not, as it turns out, a previously undiscovered species of kangaroo native to the Plains. The animal is a pet called Lynyrd, a three-year-old, banana-loving resident of Bucyrus with a history of leaving home without completing the usual paperwork.

Lynyrd is named after the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd and belongs to Jeff Miller and Casey Hubele. The couple live on roughly 20 acres and have a barn, plenty of farm animals and several more exotic pets.

Their collection includes two emus, at least one dog, several chickens, two horses and a calf named Bernadette. Bernadette is also Lynyrd’s best friend, making theirs the sort of household in which a missing kangaroo can be discussed without anyone first asking whether that sentence makes sense.

Miller and Hubele did not know Lynyrd had escaped when the cameras recorded him hopping down the road. They only discovered that he had embarked on another local adventure when Miller’s sister telephoned them.

An escaped pet kangaroo might cause panic in many homes, but Lynyrd is a repeat offender. His owners knew both how he gets out and, more importantly, that he generally knows how to get back.

“There’s a cattle crossing, and he can actually jump it,” Hubele said. “It’s usually something that scares him or spooks him, but every time he’s ever gotten out, he knows how to get home.

“I’ll see him hopping down the street, and then he turns right into the driveway and hops down and just goes right back, but he normally won’t do it.”

This time was no exception. After his unscheduled hop through Bucyrus, Lynyrd returned and is safely back on the farm with Miller, Hubele, Bernadette and the rest of the household.

For now, the banana-loving fugitive is home again. The cattle crossing, however, remains less of a boundary than a modest suggestion.