Australian Reptile Park Keepers Care for Adorable Wallaby Joey

Posted By : The Animal Facts Editorial Team

Date: June 15, 2020 12:19 pm

Photo Credit: Australian Reptile Park

Keepers at the Australian Reptile Park in New South Wales, Australia have come to the rescue of an adorable parma wallaby joey after he was abandoned by his mother recently. The four month old joey is now being cared for by keepers at the park.

He has been named ‘Bouddi’ which means ‘heart’ in indigenous Australian languages. In addition it is the name of a national park on the Central Coast of New South Wales near where the Australian Reptile Park is located.

Photo Credit: Australian Reptile Park

Director of the Australian Reptile Park, Tim Faulkner said, “It comes down to both luck and passion that our staff were able to rescue little Bouddi. Parma wallabies are very special to us as at the Australian Reptile Park so we had to do everything we possibly could to save Bouddi, which meant getting our keepers to hand raise the joey.”

Raising a joey is no small task. The dedicated keepers at the park will give Bouddi round the clock care until he can rejoin his family in a few months time. Until then keepers provide him 5 bottles a day including one at 3am. Luckily he is gaining weight, growing his fur and becoming a healthy parma wallaby joey.

Typically a parma wallaby joey would live in their mother’s pouch till 30 weeks old and suckle milk from her until 10 months old.

Photo Credit: Australian Reptile Park

Unfortunately wild parma wallabies need a leg up just as much as young Bouddi did. Their numbers have been in decline and this was not helped by recent bushfires. In fact until the 1970s they were presumed extinct in the wild until they were rediscovered by the Australian Reptile Park’s founder, Eric Worrell.

All is not lost though as Mr Faulkner explained, “Australia has the worst mammal extinction rate on the planet, sadly our recent bushfires have only escalated these extremes. Parma wallabies are also a keystone species at our sister charity, Aussie Ark, which also has a prosperous breeding program for the species.  Aussie Ark was founded by many members of the Australian Reptile Park staff so it’s absolutely wonderful to see that our Parma wallaby breeding program is successfully producing joeys at both organisations, and we are able to ensure a future for this special Aussie species.”

Learn more about the Australian Reptile Park here – Australian Reptile Park Website

Footage Provided by: The Australian Reptile Park