ROYAL OAK (WWJ) -- Zookeepers at the Detroit Zoo fear the worst in the case of a missing 5-month-old wallaby joey.
On Friday the zoo shared the first photo of the baby that had just started leaving its mother’s pouch. Two days later, zoo officials said they were "heartbroken" to report that the baby had disappeared Sunday morning from the Australian Outback Adventure habitat.
Animal care staff began immediately looking for the little one, who was last seen by staff at the zoo, in Royal Oak, at around 5 p.m. Saturday.
"They first thing we do is look at containment," the zoo's chief life sciences officer Scott Carter told WWJ Newsradio 950's Jon Hewett.
"So the first thing they did was search the entire habitat and look at anyplace that the animal could have potentially have escaped, and we have not found a place where he or she could have escaped the enclosure," Carter said.
"That said, we have looked all around the zoo, especially in this area around the habitat, just in case."
Related
![Waterford man hopes to find help for starving deer with can stuck on nose [VIDEO]](https://radioimg.audacy.com/aiu-media/deer-20b3f318-f3e7-4f4c-b08f-d6e456d56128.jpg?crop=16:9)
Carter said security officers have been scouring suvelience video from all over the zoo, but haven't seen any sign of the joey.
So, what happened to the animal if it did not, indeed, escape?
"It could have been taken by an aerial predator," Carter said. "We do have owls and hawks on grounds. These (are) of course wild birds that live here all the time. We have not had that happen before, but we can't rule it out as a possibility in this case."
Officials aren’t sure yet whether the joey is a male or female because at this stage in its life it is only starting to leave the mother’s pouch for seconds at a time.
At just 5 months old, Carter said a joey is still nursing and would not be able to survive for an extended period of time away from its mother.
“This the longer he or she is missing, hope for a favorable return here is fading," Hewett reported.
As of Monday afternoon, the search for the joey was ongoing.
Related
