Australian Reptile Park provides second chance for orphan joey

The plight of an orphaned wallaby joey being cared for at the Australian Reptile Park has generated massive social media interest over the past week.

Rejected by its mother, the five-month-old yellow footed rock wallaby joey, named Tilly, has been cared for by Park staff rushing to the aid of one of their yellow footed rock wallaby joeys that had been rejected by its mother. The 430g joey has been named Tilly and is just shy of 5 months old.

Australian Reptile Park Head of Mammals, Dean Reid, came to the rescue by becoming Tilly’s surrogate mum. This involves bottles of specially formulated milk every five hours including a feed at 2am every night and ensuring the 430 gramme joey is kept warm in her knitted pouch throughout the cold winter nights.

Tilly is a part of The Australian Reptile Park’s vital conservation breeding project to help save the threatened species. Yellow footed rock wallabies were once found throughout NSW, Queensland and South Australia.

However, they have now disappeared from New South Wales and Queensland with their numbers in the wild estimated at being as few as 5,000. Their decline is attributed to intense hunting in the 1800s and early 1900s for their pelts and in recent times, the introduction of feral pests such at the fox and cat.

Tilly (pictured) has already stolen the hearts of thousands of Australians with a video of her having a bottle posted on The Australian Reptile Park’s Facebook page already gaining over 70,000 views with followers commenting on how small and adorable the gorgeous joey is.

The Australian Reptile Park is a hands-on wildlife sanctuary located the natural bush setting of the Central Coast of NSW, only 60 minutes from Sydney or Newcastle.

For more information go to www.reptilepark.com.au 

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