See the moment N.J.’s runaway wallaby was captured in a Walmart parking lot

Rex the wallaby has been found and returned to his home at a petting zoo in Williamstown, Gloucester County, the Lots of Love Farm announced shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday.

Rex, a 3-year-old male wallaby, had been missing since late Monday from Lots of Love Farm, said the farm’s owner, Ron Layden, but was apprehended on Tuesday night at a nearby Walmart.

“He’s all good,” Layden said Wednesday. “He’s in there eating hay, and he’s nice and happy.”

Rex was captured without incident around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, with the help of a group of teenagers who’d joined the search for the missing animal, Layden said.

In a video of the capture provided by Lots of Love Farm, four young men can be seen wrangling the wallaby behind a fence near a retention pond. One is able to grab ahold of it and carry it toward a waiting kennel.

“Let’s go!” shouts one of them, in celebration.

The Walmart in question is located about a half-mile from Lots of Love Farm, where Layden said the agreeable wallaby had been last seen late Monday afternoon, around feeding time. Layden said Wednesday he believed it was an unsecured gate that allowed the animal to break free.

The capture marked the conclusion of a dizzying 24-hour period in which the 3-foot wallaby captured the hearts and imaginations of local residents, while also garnering national attention.

“My friend lives in Atlanta, and he called me up and said, ‘Yo, he’s on my TV!’“ Layden said.

Layden — whose farm includes goats, sheep, peacocks, a camel, “a zebra-donkey mix, [and] a bunch of cows” — said that while he has dealt with the occasional loose animal before, this was his farm’s first wallaby escape.

As word of the escape spread Tuesday, messages of concern and support had flooded into the farm’s Facebook page, along with suggestions and reported possible sightings.

Though some tips placed Rex as far as Sicklerville, three miles away from the farm, early sightings placed him near the Walmart, which suggests Rex never wandered too far.

In a video posted online on Tuesday, an animal matching Rex’s description could be seen hopping casually around an onlooker’s vehicle in the well-lit Walmart parking lot.

“It’s a [expletive] kangaroo!” the amazed onlooker yells in the video.

As a result of the sudden notoriety, Layden said Wednesday that he plans to put Rex out over the weekend at the family’s petting zoo, which is open Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Two days ago, Layden said, no one knew Rex existed.

Now?

“Everybody wants to come see him,” he said.