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Backpack is essential equipment for 'kangaroo mom'
November 12, 1996
Web posted at: 5:15 p.m. ESTFrom Correspondent John Zarrella
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- When all is right with nature, baby kangaroos, called joeys, hunker down in their mom's pouch. But nature doesn't always cooperate.
Edie, a 5-month-old joey, lost her mother a few weeks ago at the Dreyer Park Zoo in West Palm Beach.
(23 sec./899K QuickTime movie)
"We knew she had a joey in her pouch and when she died, we decided that obviously that the best way to keep the baby alive is that we were going to have to hand raise her," says curator Stacey Johnson.
That idea led to Teri Blake, a zoo employee. Teri needed just one more thing for her role as substitute mommy.
"We bought her a backpack," Johnson explains. Edie, the joey, "stays in the backpack and we use it like mom's pouch."
Since the death of Edie's mother, Blake is the baby kangaroo's surrogate mother. She stays with Edie around the clock, at work and at home.
Teri hasn't had any of her own children yet, but this is her second time raising a 'roo. Five years ago, she took over for a mother that rejected its baby.
The second time around isn't any easier -- especially the middle of the night feedings.
"The three o'clock feeding is pretty hard," Blake says. "It's time to wake-up and feed her and she wants to play. "
Edie and Teri will be together for a couple of more months. Then, zookeepers say, the roo will be old enough to join the rest of the zoo's kangaroos. Then, thanks to Edie's ability to adapt, all will again be right with nature.
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