Oklahoma woman fights to keep her therapy kangaroo

BROKEN ARROW, Okla. — An Oklahoma woman suffering from depression has found solace in the company of an unusual companion, but local city officials worry that the therapy pet -- a partially paralyzed kangaroo -- could become a public safety risk.

Christie Carr is seeking an exemption from the Broken Arrow City Council to keep Irwin, a 25-pound great red kangaroo that she cares for much like a child. Irwin rides in a car seat, is dressed in a shirt and pants each day and is rarely away from his doting caretaker.

At the advice of her therapist, Carr began volunteering at a local animal sanctuary, where she met Irwin, then just a baby. Less than a week later, the kangaroo named for famed Australian animal expert Steve Irwin ran into a fence, fracturing his neck and causing severe brain damage.

Carr volunteered to take the animal home and, while nursing him back to health, developed a bond. Irwin cannot stand or walk on his own, although he is slowly gaining back mobility and can hop three or four times in a row with assistance, she said.

Your morning adorable: Wallaby joey sucks its 'thumb'

We can't help but be delighted when a video like this one shows us just how similar humans and animals can be. YouTube user chrismorinbc captured this wallaby joey on video while traveling in Australia and points out that the baby is sucking its "thumb" just like a human baby might!

We're quite convinced there isn't a wallaby in the world that isn't adorable -- if you need any more evidence, check out Hannah, a red-necked wallaby joey peering out of her mother's pouch at Australia's Taronga Zoo, or Chai, a rescued agile wallaby joey caught on video taking her very first hops -- but we have to rank this little guy very high on our ever-expanding list of cute wallabies.

RELATED ADORABLE MARSUPIALS:
• Your morning adorable: Parma wallaby joey drinks from a bottle at Cincinnati Zoo
• Your morning adorable: Keepers raise wallaby joey in Tokyo zoo

-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: chrismorinbc via YouTube

Your morning adorable: Koala joey makes her debut at the San Francisco Zoo

The San Francisco Zoo is still celebrating the birth of its newest koala joey -- despite the fact that she was born back in 2010.

Zoo staff first discovered the baby when they checked the pouch of her mother, Zakary, in December. Since koalas are born a little, shall we say, underdone, they remain in their mothers' pouches for months after birth; the joey didn't emerge fully from Zakary's pouch until February. She debuted to media photographers earlier this month.

The joey is the first koala to be born at the zoo since 2000. She hasn't yet been named.

The San Francisco Zoo is a participant in a conservation breeding program designed to help koalas bounce back from a steep population drop that's due in part to an outbreak of stress-induced chlamydiosis among wild members of the species. Both Zakary and the joey's father, Travis Jr., came to the San Francisco Zoo from the San Diego Zoo as part of a temporary loan agreement.

See more photos and video of the joey after the jump!

Your morning adorable: Rescued wallaby joey takes her first hops

In much the same way that many people videotape their children's first steps, YouTube user wildlifeencounters1 captured agile wallaby joey Chai's very first hops. We're so glad this moment was shared with the Internet at large, because it's one of the cutest things we've seen all year!

Chai and another, unrelated wallaby joey named Mocha "came into our care as a result of two separate road accidents," wildlifeencounters1 explains. As of late last month, little Chai had grown strong enough to take her next steps on the road to returning to the wild. She moved to a "soft release" enclosure in the town of Mount Molloy in the Australian state of Queensland, where a wildlife rehabilitator would teach her the skills necessary to live in the wild.

Chai's current home is "an amazing property (complete with freshwater streams, rainforest, bushland and dams) situated between two national parks," wildlifeencounters1 writes. "It is a veritable Garden of Eden for macropods." Good luck, little Chai!

RELATED CUTE MARSUPIALS:
Your morning adorable: Red-necked wallaby joey peeks out of mom's pouch
Your morning adorable: Rescued kangaroo joey kneads his paws while enjoying a bottle

-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: wildlifeencounters1 via YouTube

Your morning adorable: Red-necked wallaby joey peeks out of mom's pouch

At Australia's Taronga Zoo, a red-necked wallaby joey named Hannah is just beginning to explore the world outside the pouch of her mother, Sweet-Pea.

"Just this week, keepers report that she's just started to venture from mum's pouch," the zoo noted in a statement.

As adults, red-necked wallabies look -- well, pretty much the way you'd expect them to. Their fur is primarily gray and white, but their shoulders and the napes of their necks have a distinct reddish tinge. As an adult, little Hannah will weigh about 25 to 50 pounds and stand three feet tall or less.

After the jump, see more photos of Hannah and a video slide show of her and the Taronga Zoo's koala joey, Lillian, growing up!

Your morning adorable: Parma wallaby joey drinks from a bottle at Cincinnati Zoo

Perhaps the cutest resident of the Cincinnati Zoo (well ... top 5, at the very least) is this fellow, an 8-month-old parma wallaby who's currently living in the zoo's nursery.

Parma wallabies are small macropods who, as adults, weigh only about 7 to 12 pounds. The species has an interesting history: By the late 1800s, they were believed extinct, and there were no reports of parma wallaby sightings until 1965.

That year, a group trying to reduce the population of another species, the tammar wallaby, on an island in New Zealand discovered a previously unknown group of parma wallabies living among the more populous species. An effort was quickly launched to catch the parma wallabies and begin a breeding program, with the hope of later reintroducing the species to the wild. Within a few years, another parma wallaby population was found in New South Wales, Australia -- apparently the little guys had just been adept at staying out of the public eye all those years!

Today, the parma wallaby still doesn't have a large population, but it's considered "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature -- not endangered.

See another photo and video of the Cincinnati Zoo's parma wallaby -- the first of its species ever born there -- after the jump!

Your morning adorable: Rescued koala joey has a snack

We're almost -- almost -- unable to handle the cuteness of Tinkerbell, a rescued koala joey who seems to be flourishing under the expert care of volunteers at the Koala Hospital of Port Macquarie, Australia.

Tinkerbell is just one of many koalas -- babies, juveniles and adults -- cared for at Koala Hospital, a state-of-the-art facility that even includes eight intensive care units specifically designed with koalas in mind.

After being found by herself and near death, Tinkerbell was taken to the specialty veterinary care center and received round-the-clock care from a "foster mother." (Imagine having a baby koala in your house! The mind reels.)

If you love Tinkerbell as much as we do (and how could you not?), you can see more of her at Koala Hospital's Flickr stream. You can even "adopt" a wild koala like her through the organization's website.

RELATED CUTE MARSUPIALS:
Your morning adorable: Rescued kangaroo joey kneads his paws while enjoying a bottle
Your morning adorable: Ticklish koala flicks its ears

-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: koalawrangler via YouTube

Your morning adorable: Rescued kangaroo joey kneads his paws while enjoying a bottle

We were delighted to discover YouTube user GlobalWildlife's extensive collection of videos showing a rescued red kangaroo joey named Skippy at various stages of his development.

Problem: deciding which was the cutest.

After much consideration and considerable hemming and hawing, we finally settled on the video above, in which a very young Skippy drinks enthusiastically from a bottle while kneading his tiny paws rhythmically.

Skippy's enthusiasm for the bottle didn't diminish with age; GlobalWildlife's channel also features a video of the hungry joey anxiously peering out from his makeshift pouch as he waits for his lunch to warm up to its ideal temperature and another in which he impatiently begs for a bottle by pawing at his guardian's legs.

You can see how one might fall down an adorable-kangaroo-joey-video rabbit hole while watching these. A few of our other favorites: Skippy learning to hop, meeting a butterfly for the first time and deciding whether or not to challenge a chair to a boxing match.

RELATED CUTE KANGAROOS:
Your morning adorable: Rescued kangaroo thinks he's a human
Your morning adorable: Rescued kangaroo joey goes for a swim

-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: GlobalWildlife via YouTube

Your morning adorable: Koala joey makes its debut at Germany's Duisburg Zoo

If there's one creature, other than a giant panda, that couldn't fail to be adorable if it tried, it's surely the koala. So we couldn't help but coo audibly when we first saw this little fellow, who made his public debut at Germany's Duisburg Zoo in a weighing ceremony held Friday morning.

Despite his small stature, this little guy is actually 215 days old. Koalas are born tiny, blind and hairless and grow to resemble small versions of adult koalas only after bulking up for several months in their mother's pouch.

A koala's gestation period is just over a month, and a newborn joey looks "rather like a pink jellybean," according to the Australian Koala Foundation. This fellow weighs just over a pound.

The Duisburg Zoo is well-known for its koala breeding program as well as its dolphin exhibit.

See more koala-joey photos after the jump!

Your morning adorable: Rescued kangaroo thinks he's a human

We can't help but be enchanted by YouTube user norablueskies' kangaroo friend, Bracken, who lives with her at a wildlife sanctuary in Australia. 

Bracken was raised as a pet before his owners gave him up and seems to be a bit confused about which species he actually belongs to. Now he "is being rehabilitated to the wild" at a sanctuary, norablueskies explains. "[P]roblem is, he seems pretty happy with human company!"

With that in mind, we know we really should find the puppylike way he follows humans around the sanctuary sad, not cute. But we just can't help smiling when we see him bend over backward in sheer enjoyment of a good scratch. (Man oh man, do we enjoy watching an animal enjoy a good scratch.)

Here's hoping that Bracken will someday be able to return to the wild. We're content in the knowledge that, if and when he does, we'll always have this video to remember him by!

RELATED CUTE MARSUPIALS:
Your morning adorable: Rescued kangaroo joey goes for a swim
Your morning adorable: Ticklish koala flicks its ears

-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: norablueskies via YouTube