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. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email 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. …