Tasmanian devil Mary found 2km from her Gold Coast theme park home after two weeks on the run

After two weeks eluding thermal imaging drones and teams of zookeepers, a Tasmanian devil on the run in the Gold Coast has finally been found – and taken to hospital in an unstable condition.

The devil, Mary, escaped a quarantine facility in the Paradise Country theme park – more than 15,000km north of her native range – in the early morning dark of 2 June, with zookeepers believing an “abnormally large leap” saw her clear a fence.

CCTV cameras captured the carnivorous marsupial skulking around deserted grounds within the park at 4am on the morning she disappeared.

In the days that followed, Mary was seen about 2km from the park on a home security camera system, while searchers found the remains of kangaroo and wallaby carcasses, as well as devil droppings, in the surrounding bushlands.

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But the marsupial carnivore eluded her captors until Tuesday night, when she was found in an area of bush just off Kopps Road, less than 2km from the theme park from which she fled.

A spokesperson for Village Roadshow Theme Parks – which operates several Gold Coast theme parks, including Paradise Country – said she was discovered in an unstable condition “following extensive search efforts tracking latest CCTV sightings and geographical projection modelling” and was rushed to a specialist veterinary hospital.

“Paradise Country’s experienced wildlife team are continuing to support and care for Mary who is currently stable and remaining in the veterinary hospital to allow specialists to conduct further diagnostic testing,” the spokesperson said.

Within a 2km radius of the theme park are pockets of bush surrounded by housing estates, though these are linked by narrow creeks to the more expansive forests of the Gold Coast hinterland.

Mary had left behind her companion, Mavka, having both recently arrived from a zoological facility in New South Wales.

Initially, zookeepers said they were not only shocked to hear an animal had escaped their facility but that they couldn’t believe it was Mary.

In the days after her escape, Village Roadshow released a video of the Paradise Country curator of animals, Lauren Mousley.

In it, Mousley said Mary was two, an age at which devils “can be a little bit more adventurous”.

“But – we’ve only known her a short period of time – and what we do know about her is that she is extremely shy and, when there is movement, she tends to bunker down,” the zookeeper said.

“So finding that she was the one that, uh, headed out, is very, very abnormal, given her demeanour.”