Witnesses first spotted the runaway marsupial in the parking lot of a Staten Island auto repair shop on Saturday morning.
Shop owner Urim Osmani said when he arrived for work, he saw Buster kneeling down about six metres away. He assumed it was a deer from a nearby wildlife refuge.
"Then he stood up," Osmani said.
"I said, 'What's a kangaroo doing on Staten Island?'"
Police officers responding to a n emergency call were able to locate Buster's owner at a nearby home.
Police said the man retrieved his kangaroo, saying it had hopped away from a friend's fenced backyard about 15 minutes earlier after a gate was accidentally left open.
Although keeping a kangaroo in the city is prohibited, it's allowed in the upstate New York community where the owner lives, police said.
The owner assured them that he and Buster were headed home.
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