A number of people have noticed echidnas on the road at this time of the year – but you may also find them in the oddest of places.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
When Jeorg Gruenfeld - acting unit controller for SES Inverell - visited the foyer of the NSW SES Inverell Unit on Sunday, he was surprised by the mess he found.
There was paperwork everywhere, a chair on the floor and the drawers were slightly open. He even saw mud in the corner of the room, but there were no clear footprints.
“I thought that an intruder had broken in,” he said.
On closer inspection he realised that items of interest were not missing and there was no breech to the alarm system, making the “crime scene” all the more bizarre.
“I didn’t want to tidy up because I thought that would obstruct a police investigation,” he said.
READ MORE: Watch out for echidnas on the road
On Monday morning, Martin Mooney, of the NSW Rural Fire Service that shares the building, visited to see what was going on.
He tried to close one of the drawers but it simply wouldn’t shut as there was clearly something behind it.
On closer inspection, the culprit was found – a little echidna.
“It is strange that there was no breech to the alarm system. We once had a pigeon trapped in the room, however the alarm system went off,” said Gruenfeld. “We suspect that the echidna entered the room on Thursday.”