Wallaby snared by police after bounding across Sydney Harbour Bridge

A wayward wallaby was chased by police after bounding across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The adult male was captured without any apparent serious injury and is expected to be released back into the wild within days.

The startled wallaby hopped across the bridge’s eight lanes of traffic an hour before sunrise then turned onto an expressway on the harbour’s southern shore toward the Sydney Opera House.

Veterinarian Larry Vogelnest said the wallaby was “quite distressed” but he gave it a tranquilliser before taking it to the wildlife hospital at nearby Taronga Zoo.

“It had some minor grazes on its face and its hind legs,” Mr Vogelnest told reporters. “There don’t seem to be any major injuries.”

Mr Vogelnest said he did not know where the wallaby had come from or how it found its way to the bridge.

“It’s unusual obviously to have a wallaby running around on the Harbour Bridge, but there are more and more of these wallabies turning up in bush land close to the city,” he said.

Police Inspector Kylie Smith said several police cars and horse-handlers from the police mounted unit had responded to the wallaby alert.

“When police arrived, the wallaby refused to obey police directions and initially evaded police,” the officer joked.

Six officers eventually nabbed the macropod, including the horse-handlers who attempted to calm it down, she said.

“It was a very unusual job for a city police officer to be chasing a wallaby down the Harbour Bridge,” she said, adding that the officers involved would likely never be assigned a similar job.

The wallaby was lucky it did not attempt the journey an hour later at 6am when traffic would have been far heavier, Ms Smith said.

A motorist who identified himself as Ray told Sydney Radio 2GB of his surprise at seeing police cars with flashing lights pursuing a wallaby.

“I’m from the bush, I’m used to seeing them running all over the place, but I’ve never seen one so close in the city before,” he said.