FACT VS. FICTION: The Real Story Of The Tuscaloosa Kangaroo

NORTHPORT, AL — Unless you live with your head in the sand, you've seen the numerous, overly speculative headlines designed to attract your clicks.

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"The Tuscaloosa Kangaroo" — the harrowing tale of a runaway marsupial in west Alabama that has captured the attention and hearts of a wide segment of the Tuscaloosa metropolitan area over the last week.

It's a fun story, sure.

It's also one that's noticeably light on evidence, the absent of which has done little to stop its meteoric rise to the most shared story in the area this month. The jokes have flooded social media, resulting in cheap Photoshop memes and a subsequent slew of unconfirmed sightings.

Yet, after almost two days of hysteria this week, the trail has gone cold and zero evidence has presented itself to even validate the creature's existence.

No confirmed photos or video. No body. No owners of the animal to come forward to claim responsibility.

So, was it ever true at all? Or, just a case of people seeing what they wanted to see, coupled with the rumor mill jumping on a story to benefit from the web traffic?

To separate the verifiable from the wholesale ludicrous, Patch set out to build a definitive narrative of the entire silly thing, so as to both spotlight the realities of the situation, while at the same time easily dispel any misinformation relating to the story.

'That's Something Else'

Since unverified online sources are so central to this story, let's look at one of the many copy-and-pasted definitions found on the web of the term "high strangeness."

"A quality of being peculiar, bizarre, utterly absurd."

If we've been experiencing anything on the north side of the Hugh Thomas Bridge this week, this fits the description, no different than Tuscaloosa having its very own cryptid wandering our woods and city streets. For those who remember, think back to the "Tuscaloosa Python."

Still, let's consider something a little more dry and academic: Conformity bias.

According to Psychology Today, this term refers to:

"A tendency of people to behave like those around them rather than using their own personal judgment."

Now, for those immediately writing this off as the author being a wet-blanket or no fun at parties, it's important to consider the origins of the topic at hand and the evidence we have at our disposal.

So, where did it begin? This seems like the logical place to start.

Fayette County native Leslie Cain told Patch she was driving to work last Monday morning when she spotted the muscular marsupial.

Even for a skeptic, the story is quite vivid:

"When I first saw it, I had actually thought it was just a dog there scratching its belly, but when it stood up it was huge and just started hopping ... I knew it wasn't a dog it literally looked like it had just come from the gym."

Understandably, Cain said she was too startled by what she saw to immediately reach for her phone for a video and even said there were plenty of doubters in the wake of her initial post.

"Yes, a lot of people were like 'are you sure?' and I was like 'when that kangaroo stood up and started hopping, I knew it wasn't a dog," she said.

Local authorities confirmed to Patch that Cain's story posted to social media was the first instance of the "Tuscaloosa Kangaroo" story to make it on their radar, but no calls were received at dispatch regarding the vagrant marsupial.

Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office Animal Control Supervisor Martha Hocutt, in an interview with Patch, said the post made the rounds over Facebook on Monday and, to her best guess, is the reason the rumor began to circulate that the kangaroo was from Fayette County.

"I talked to the Fayette County Sheriff's Office and .... when the girl quit laughing long enough," she said, before underscoring how serious she takes her job. "They said they had not had any reports of anybody missing one, but that doesn’t mean it's not out there."

It was around this time that R.J. Bigham — owner of Bigham Farms & Exotics on Upper Columbus Road in Coker — joined the effort and became the de facto point man in the search, due to his expertise with exotic animals.

Indeed, he was the first to publicly connect the kangaroo to Fayette County to a wider audience on Facebook after speaking with Hocutt, which spawned the Facebook origin story of the Kangaroo.

Bigham has been quick to distance his business from the missing kangaroo, even offering up his services to local law enforcement in the search.

"We haven’t heard anything for a few days," he told Patch on Sunday. "All the 'leads' aren’t verified so we aren’t even sure if it’s even still out."

Bigham then provided his analysis, saying it could be likely that the owner — if indeed the kangaroo exists — is keeping quiet about their connections to the wild animal. Still, Bigham hopes the marsupial is safe and said he remains on-call in the event it is located and can be safely subdued.

Hocutt concurred and was quick to point out that while it's required by law to have a permit for certain exotic animals in the United States, the law doesn't apply to kangaroos.

She then provided the example of the kangaroo in Winfield that got loose and caused a stir in the spring of 2021, saying that the owner was quick to go public with the news and actively help in the recovery of the animal.

"On The Move"

The day after the initial Facebook post by Leslie Cain, TCSO Animal Control did receive a call from the Northport Police Department, saying a resident spotted a kangaroo, first in the vicinity of the Faucett Brothers Activity Center. However, investigators were then given the more general location of the nearby Rose Boulevard area — almost 20 miles away from where the elusive creature was first spotted a day earlier.

Still, only eyewitness evidence existed.

"We go over there with a couple units, put a drone up and nobody saw anything," Hocutt said, mentioning the in-kind cost that goes in to answering each individual animal control call.

Now let's move on to last Thursday — a full day after the rumor mill was spinning out memes and speculation.

A video posted to social media by Barstool Alabama — the UA affiliate of the national sports entertainment media site — purported to show the kangaroo swimming in Lake Tuscaloosa.

While the individual who took the video last Thursday confirmed the originality to Patch, the 21-year-old UA student asked to not be named in the story.

"I was on the lake with some friends of ours [first time I’ve ever been on Lake Tuscaloosa] and my friend spots what he thought was someone swimming. Then we were like 'no that’s a spike (a male deer with small antlers) then we got closer and we were like ... that’s something else. I took the video and after I took it i remembered that there was a kangaroo loose in T-Town."

The UA student was certain in what he saw, there's no doubt, but Hocutt provided a more plausible explanation — one she has seen with her own eyes.

Hocutt said while kangaroos can indeed swim, they are not known as distance swimmers, while white tail deer can tread water for some time. What's more, she said the video provided little else in terms of conclusive proof that the animal swimming is not a female or juvenile white tail deer.

Yet, more developments in the case awaited on Bone Camp Road, just outside of Northport.

As one local news story put it:

"Phil Duke was just sitting in his yard with his wife Jill enjoying the glorious Alabama sunshine. When she looked up she spotted the marsupial in her yard with a deer. Just hanging out back like it was their playground."

Patch spoke briefly with Phil Duke Sunday morning, who confirmed the photo — which shows the spindly front legs of a deer and conveniently leaves out the animal's head — was nothing more than a joke, as he was justifiably having fun with the hysteria over the "Tuscaloosa Kangaroo."

Duke also confirmed he was never contacted by any local media before any stories were published about his photo.

As with the photo's author, Hocutt easily wrote off the picture as exactly what it appears to be, saying she has seen white tail deer on their hind legs eating from her pear and apple trees.

"If you look at the picture and blow it up, you can see the front legs are long," she said. "They are legs, not short kangaroo arms, and the face is cut off. I understand people are getting into all this, but it’s just hype."

Hocutt was quick to point out, though, that a lack of evidence doesn't mean the creature doesn't exist. Rather, her concerns rest not on misinformation, but on the safety of the kangaroo, if it indeed is out there.

"We just want to help the kangaroo," she said. "I don’t want to see it get hurt and don’t want to see anybody get hurt. They will hurt you."

Hocutt said her division's priority remains making sure the animal is returned safely to whoever owns it.

"Just watch it, don’t try to get near it," she said. "My guys already understand everything and we have a plan, it's just a matter of getting it put together."

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