Orphaned Tree Kangaroo Gets Surrogate Mother at the Adelaide Zoo
Makaia survived critical first 24 hours, popped head out of new mom's pouch.
— -- Zookeepers in Australia used a new technique that saved the life of a tree kangaroo.
A five-week-old joey, Makaia, was orphaned in November after a falling branch killed his mother and zookeepers ‘cross-fostered’ the Goodfellow’s Tree Kangaroo with a yellow-foot rock-wallaby to save his life, according to the Adelaide Zoo’s website.
Makaia was put into the surrogate mother’s pouch since he was too small to be hand-reared by zookeepers, the zoo said.
“We’ve had great success over the years’ cross-fostering between wallaby species, but the specialized breeding technique has never been used on a tree kangaroo,” veterinarian Dr. David McLelland said.
“Not only are tree kangaroos distant relatives of wallabies, they also have many behavioral and physical differences. We had no idea if the yellow-foot would accept the tree kangaroo joey, but if we wanted to save the joey we had to try our luck,” he added.
Makaia survived the critical 24 hours after the transfer and popped his head out of his surrogate mom’s pouch at the end of January.
He stayed with her for three and a half months before Gayl Males — Adelaide Zoo team leader of natives — became his “third mum,” she said.
“He’s certainly a cheeky little fellow and loves running amok, testing the boundaries using my home as his personal playground, climbing on everything, pulling toilet paper off the rolls, but he also loves quiet time cuddling with my husband in the evening while we watch TV,” Males said.
Makaia spends days at the zoo and evenings with Males. Zookeepers expect to continue full-time care of Makaia until he’s 15-18 months old and no longer has to be fed overnight.
The cross-fostering process allows the breeding cycle to accelerate and lets the Adelaide Zoo grow the population of endangered species six to eight times faster than normal, according to the zoo.
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