An Alternative “Pouch” for a Baby Wallaby

Call it quick innovative thinking or call it lazy and uninspired, Tilly, a baby wallaby who was found outside her mom’s pouch, has found a new pouch to nestle in to: a backpack.

A resident of the ZSW Whipsnade Zoo, Bedfordshire, England, Tilly is part of a line of unusually reared animals, warming up to the alternative pouch offered to her by attentive staff members of the Zoo.

Discovered last March, Tilly was found separated from her mother’s pouch, with the poor baby wallaby aimless and lost in the zoo’s grounds. Being a baby, Tilly was far from being mature enough to weather the elements, much in need of a mother’s pouch in line with a wallaby’s natural development cycle.

Staff members of the zoo were quick in finding an alternative pouch for Tilly, using the combination of a backpack and a blanket to serve as Tilly’s new “pouch”.

As a member of the marsupial class of mammals, wallabies’ growth stages can be likened with that of kangaroos, with babies requiring the safety and protection of a mother’s pouch during early life stages.

Generally speaking, wallabies denote any of the 30 species of the Family Macropodidae, an informal designation that’s dubbed for macropods which are comparably smaller than kangaroos.

Generally forest dwellers, their known predators includes foxes, feral cats and wild dogs, and as dietary habits goes, they are herbivores.

Had Tilly not found a new pouch to settle in, she ran the risk of getting injured, even to points where her overall well-being could have been at risk.

Now with her new alternative pouch, Tilly’s more in a position to develop ideally, though in a rather unusual method as her future wallaby cohorts would certainly tell her in the future.