Perth zoo has successfully bred a Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo for the first time in 36 years, bringing the number of males in the endangered marsupial’s global captive breeding population to 15.
The joey, named Mian, was born jellybean-sized six months ago and last week poked his head out of his mother’s pouch, with adorable results.
Zookeeper Kerry Pickles said the birth was an exciting development in global efforts to conserve the species, which is restricted by a limited gene pool.
Mian’s father, Huli, was transferred from a wildlife park in Queensland to mate with his mother, Kaluli, and will now be introduced to the zoo’s other female, Doba.
The pair were introduced through a mesh gate before being allowed to interact and Kaluli was rather aggressive until she realised what was going on.
“Eventually, she realised what she was supposed to do and she settled down,” Pickles said.
“It was his first time trying to breed, so he was a bit patchy at first, but he got the hang of it.”
The romance did not last long.
“After the deed was done she got a bit aggressive again, so we separated them,” Pickles said.
The zoo’s veterinary team were able to detect the joey at four days old, when it had already crawled into the pouch, and have been recording its development with a small camera.
“We were able to see when toenails developed, when Mian’s eyes opened, his first smattering of fur and when he started to poke his head out of his mother’s pouch,” Pickles said.
Mian will be in the pouch for another one or two months. When he matures, he will be sent to another zoo to continue the breeding program.
Demand for new male Goodfellow’s is high.
Last year zookeepers at Adelaide zoo transplanted a five-week-old, 5cm-long male Goodfellow’s joey to the pouch of a yellow-footed rock wallaby after his mother was killed by a falling tree branch, in the first recorded attempt at cross-genus marsupial surrogacy.
The species is named for British zoological collector Walter Goodfellow, whose collecting expeditions at the turn of the 20th century saw him lend his name to six different animals.
The Goodfellow’s kangaroo was listed as endangered after being been hunted to dangerously low levels in its native Papua New Guinea.
“Being one of the largest animals in the Papua New Guinea rainforest, they are highly prized as a food item,” Pickles said.
“Traditionally, they have been hunted for thousands of years but with the increase in the human population in the area it’s really not sustainable any more and that’s why the hunting practice is such a threat to them.”
Pickles said the zoo was working with Tenkile Conservation Alliance in Papua New Guinea to change the practice and create protected habitat areas.
Some former hunters have been co-opted into using their tree kangaroo tracking skills to help get an accurate population count, while researchers supply them with hutches of rabbits and chickens as an alternative meat source.
