Homemade pouch helps biologist adopt orphaned wallaby

TACOMA — When a baby wallaby's mother died of a bacterial infection last month, a Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium biologist volunteered to become the baby's foster mother.

Jennifer Donovan, 34, a senior staff biologist, has never been a mom, but she knew just where to turn when A.J., the orphaned Parma wallaby, needed her help. Donovan called her own mother, Toni.

The 7-month-old joey was accustomed to her touch and her smell, and Donovan had fashioned a makeshift pouch to make him comfortable. But she knew she needed a better way to carry the wallaby around.

"Drop everything. Start sewing," she told her mother.

The result was a fleece-lined "joey pouch" Donovan hangs around her neck.

"I just picked up little Mr. A.J. and immediately upon being put into that pouch, he calmed down," Donovan said.

Donovan fed A.J. formula with a curved-needle syringe because he wasn't willing to eat from a bottle. His weight has doubled from 800 to 1,600 grams, or about 3.5 pounds, since his mother, Alkina, died May 5.

A.J. is about a foot long from nose to rump and has a 12-inch tail. Average height for adult Parma wallabies is about 1 ½ feet.

Donovan tucks him into the pouch for part of the day while she makes her rounds at the zoo's Kids Zone, teaching youngsters that "animals are awesome, and we want to protect them every day."

And she shows up on her days off to care for A.J.

Zoo spokeswoman Carolyn Cox said it's not unusual for zookeepers to hand-rear young critters. But she added, "I've never seen anybody go to these lengths to help an animal get through its childhood."

Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium is the only combined zoo and aquarium in the Pacific Northwest. It focuses on animals from the Pacific Rim region.

Parma wallabies come from the forests of New South Wales in the southeast corner of Australia. At one time they were believed to be extinct, until some were found in the 1960s.

The Parma wallabies are less than half the size and still considerably less common than red-necked wallabies. Both carry their young in pouches and use their long, powerful tails for balance and hopping.