COVID-19: Australian kangaroo spotted hopping through eerie Adelaide streets

Sydney: A kangaroo was spotted hopping through the empty streets of the Australian city of Adelaide, as coronavirus lockdowns lure wildlife into abandoned capitals around the world.

Police officers monitoring the city’s street cameras had “tracked a suspect wearing a grey fur coat hopping through the heart of the #adelaide CBD,” the state police department said in a social media post.

Officers spotted the restless animal around government buildings in the central district and decided to follow it virtually, watching its urban journey through their screens and then seeing him head back to surrounding parkland.

“It’s just unheard of, we sometimes spot kangaroos in the suburbs but never in the city,” a police media officer in South Australia state told Reuters on the phone.

“Normally it’s bustling with cars but to have no vehicles - it’s quite eerie at the moment - there was only one vehicle which nearly collided but managed to miss it,” the police spokeswoman said.

As humans hunker down in their homes to stop the spread of COVID-19, animals have been spotted in deserted urban areas around the world. The viral disease has infected more than 2 million people and killed over 150,000.

Earlier this month, Chilean authorities captured two cougars in the capital, Santiago, while wild boars have been seen trotting through the Israeli city of Haifa in recent weeks.