Rejected kangaroo joey inspires international cooperation

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Kangaroo joey Tijana, a resident of the Belgrade Zoo, is getting some TLC from her keepers -- and the international community -- after being rejected by her mother.

The mother kangaroo, apparently not a fan of giant flightless birds, was startled by an emu while carrying the joey in her pouch. Tijana fell out of the pouch and her mother refused to accept her back. Enter the Australian Embassy in Serbia, which arranged to have special milk delivered for the baby.

Milk donations also arrived from the U.S. and Germany, the BBC reports. And keepers from the U.S., Australia, Germany, the Czech Republic and Belgium offered much-needed advice to the Belgrade Zoo staff. ‘Without them, she wouldn’t be alive,’ keeper Mainga Hamadahamane told the Canadian Press.

Tijana will be fed a diet of milk and kept in an incubator for the next several months. See video of the baby kangaroo at the Guardian.

-- Lindsay Barnett