Rare joey emerges from mom’s pouch after ‘extremely important’ birth at NC zoo. See it
A rare marsupial joey is exploring life outside its mother’s pouch for the first time at a North Carolina zoo.
The North Carolina Zoo, located in Asheboro, welcomed a new healthy bettong joey to its desert habitat Sept. 6, zookeeper Kim van Spronsen told McClatchy News. The zoo released its video introducing the joey Tuesday, Sept. 12.
“We’ve been very lucky that we haven’t had to intervene,” van Spronsen said. “Nothing’s gone wrong.”
Brush-tailed bettongs — also known as rat kangaroos or woylies — are a small species of marsupials native to Australia. They are nocturnal, rarely drink water and are capable of picking things up with their tail, according to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo.
They are also considered “critically endangered,” according to the N.C. Zoo’s Facebook post, which makes the birth “extremely important.”
“There are only 37 bettongs in the 13 The Association of Zoos and Aquariums accredited zoos,” the post said.
Adelaide and Powell, the joey’s parents, arrived at the N.C. Zoo around seven months ago, van Spronsen said, which was the first time she had primarily worked with marsupials. She’s been a zookeeper at the N.C. Zoo for 15 years, she said.
Zoo staff brought in the bettongs with the hopes of the two breeding, which was exciting considering their endangered status, van Spronsen said.
Leading up to Adelaide and Powell’s arrival, the zoo staff had to research the species extensively. Paying special attention to the animals’ genetics is also essential when dealing with critically endangered populations to make sure relatives aren’t bred together, van Spronsen said.
No amount of research, however, could prepare the keepers for the pair’s personality.
Adelaide is “extremely curious,” van Spronsen said, and she approaches the zookeepers with no problem. Her counterpart, Powell, is also very outgoing in his own right.
“All he wanted to do was breed the female, it was crazy,” she said. “He would just chase her around all the time.”
Breeding zoo animals isn’t always so easy, van Spronsen said. It can take a long time for animals to get accustomed to each other, and sometimes, they never do, she said. But with Adelaide and Powell, the zoo staff were very lucky, she added.
Bettong joeys are born at around 20 days, according to the N.C. Zoo’s Facebook post. They’re born naked and helpless, van Spronsen said, and are about “the size of a jelly bean.”
At that point, they crawl up into the mother’s pouch to continue developing until they’re ready to come out, she said.
Before the joey gets larger, it’s very difficult to tell if the female is pregnant. Zoo staff also wanted to avoid taking Adelaide to the vet and running pregnancy tests to avoid stressing her out, van Spronsen said.
Then, it became more obvious that Adelaide had her own little joey.
“You see a lot of movement and then as it got bigger, you’d see little parts of the joey sticking out,” van Spronsen said. “A lot of times, its feet or the tail.”
But now, at around 90 days old, Adelaide’s joey has been “evicted” from the pouch, van Spronsen said. Zoo staff checks to make sure the joey is nursing properly and getting enough food, but for the most part, zookeepers try to let the animal take care of its young.
So far, the joey has been a “little nervous” and “not exploratory,” but that may change as it continues to grow up, van Spronsen said. The joey has been staying close to its mom.
Plans to determine the sex of the joey will happen in the coming days, van Spronsen said, which will begin the fun of naming it. So far, the staff already have a whole dry erase board full of names that start with “Joey” like “Joey Pesci.”
The zoo hopes to continue to expand its bettong population, and another joey may already be on the way.
Bettongs, like other marsupials can stall their pregnancies while waiting for another joey to leave the pouch, van Spronsen said. So the new joey’s departure from the pouch may signal that another baby is growing inside Adelaide’s pouch.
“Everything’s just really been wonderfully falling into place for us,” van Spronsen said.
Asheboro is around 70 miles west of Raleigh.
