Months of patience and training, plus a tiny camera, are giving the Animal Care team at Zoo New England’s Franklin Park Zoo the opportunity to observe the development of a baby western grey kangaroo.

The joey was about the size of a jellybean when it was born around August 15 to now 4-year-old mother Opal and 3-year-old father Howie. While kangaroo joeys are tiny and underdeveloped at this stage, they have the remarkable ability to climb into the safety of their mother’s pouch where they continue to grow. For the first time at Franklin Park Zoo, the animal care team used an endoscopic camera to gently probe Opal’s pouch during routine training sessions to monitor the joey’s growth. Using the tiny camera allowed the animal care team to confirm the birth of a joey much sooner than traditional visual inspections, and they could intervene to provide veterinary care if needed.

“The seemingly simple interaction of using the camera to check the pouch took months of positive reinforcement training with Opal,” explains Josh Brancazio, a senior zookeeper at Franklin Park Zoo and the primary kangaroo trainer. “Kangaroos can be timid and skittish. Letting her choose whether she wants to participate in a training session and rewarding her with tasty treats helped build trust. She calmly lets us insert the camera into her pouch to check on the joey because of this trusting relationship.”

Through these harmless checks, the animal care team has documented the little joey’s healthy development since its birth. The last check confirmed that the baby's eyes are open, and it has started growing whiskers. It has even started poking its nose out of the pouch for short moments.

Grey kangaroo joeys continue to develop exclusively inside their mother’s pouch for 7 to 8 months after birth. The care team expects to see the joey pop its whole head out for the first time later this month or early next month. The joey won’t emerge fully from the pouch for 2 to 3 months after that. They become fully independent around 11 months old.

“Providing exemplary animal care is a cornerstone of our mission here at Zoo New England,” says Bill Robles, a curator at Zoo New England. “Josh and the rest of the macropod training team have done amazing work with Opal to be able to monitor her and the joey as it grows. We’ve just started seeing its nose, and we are looking forward to seeing it fully emerge from its pouch.”

While the baby will remain cozy inside the pouch for a few more weeks, guests may observe some movement in Opal’s pouch as she’s hopping around the Outback Trail. She shares the habitat with fellow western grey kangaroos, Howie and Auggie, four red-necked wallabies and two emu.

Grey kangaroos are part of a group of mammals known as macropods, which means “large foot” in Latin. Zoo New England participates in the Western Grey Kangaroo Species Survival Plan (SSP) in cooperation with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Each SSP carefully manages the breeding of species to maintain a genetically healthy and demographically stable population in human care. Kangaroos, which are endemic to Australia, face threats of car and train collisions as their habitat is divided by roads and railways.