Wayward echidna on visit to shopping centre rescued by police

Police officers in Victoria, Australia, used a baton to help rescue a frightened echidna which appeared to have crossed a number of roads before arriving at a busy shopping centre in Melbourne's north.



Police constable Laine Bramley said she was driving through University Hill Shopping Centre in Bundoora on Monday afternoon when she and her partner saw the echidna crouching against a shop wall. Constable Bramley said they called a local wildlife rescue group for advice on how to move the echidna from the area, before "gently jemmying the echidna out of the corner with a baton".



"It had burrowed itself into the wall so tightly it took me several minutes to get it out of the corner," she said. "Luckily I had my slash proof gloves on." The echidna was then escorted to nearby parkland where he was released without charge. Wildlife Victoria's Amy Amato said it was increasingly common for native animals to be displaced from their natural habitat into suburbia by development on Melbourne's urban fringes.



"Any human interaction for a wild animal is going to be really, really scary so we want to make sure we limit that as much as possible and get help to that animal as soon as possible," she said. "Echidnas are amazing creatures and that little one certainly found itself in a silly spot, so being able to get it out and back to its natural habitat as quickly as possible is fantastic. We really commend the police on being able to do that."