A wallaby has searchers on the hop after being spotted about 45 kilometres outside the marsupial's South Canterbury containment area.
Wallabies are considered a pest in New Zealand that can cause significant damage to farming and conservation land and any sighting outside the containment area is a concern according to Environment Canterbury biosecurity officer Brent Glentworth of Timaru.
The South Canterbury wallaby containment zone is between the Rangitata and Waitaki rivers and this latest sighting - on New Year's Day - was near Methven, about 45 kilometres away from the Rangitata River.
"We need to remind people that it is an offence to take a wallaby or joey from the containment area and keep them as a pet."
Glentworth said it was almost certain the wallaby - one of six sighted outside the containment zone since the start of 2019 - came from the South Canterbury region.
"There have been two road kills, a couple found in the Mackenzie District, and another couple near the south bank of the Waitaki River.
"Of course any wallaby sighting outside the containment area is a concern, but that level of six this year is about average for this part of the year."
On Tuesday, a significant search mission by one of ECan's contractors drew a blank, but Glentworth did not rule out it being spotted again.
"They're very good at hiding, and finding them can be a needle in the haystack type operation."
Glentworth said 2018 was the "first year in a long time" where ECan were getting on top of the wallaby population, both in terms of how many sighted, and how many were caught.
This was partly due to the fact that ECan had upped its spending on wallaby control by nearly $120,000 to approximately $230,000 over the past year.
"There was a long period where wallaby control was not as co-ordinated as it could have been, and this led to a slow but steady increase in the population.
"We estimate there could be hundreds of thousands of them in the containment area, which is 900,000 hectares. We're putting more money and resources into both containing the population and into educating land owners about what needs to be done."
However, Glentworth said it was still the landowners' requirement to keep the wallaby population down. Once it gets to over "level three" on the Guilford Scale - meaning there are obvious signs of faecal and track marks from wallabies on the property - ECan issues a direction to the landowner ordering them to reduce the wallaby population.
"Wallabies are a real pest. Three to four wallabies are the equivalent of one stock unit in terms of the damage they can do native species. They're fine in Australia, but not in New Zealand."