Gaze upon this terribly tiny and adorable rescued glider joey
Australia has plenty of scary animals, but there are more than plenty adorable ones too.
Take for instance this incredibly tiny yellow-bellied glider joey. She and her mother were rescued after surviving a collision with a barbed wire fence. Sad face. The 10-week-old glider and her mum are currently being treated at the Taronga Wildlife Hospital in Sydney, Australia after they were taken in by wildlife carers from rescue organisation WIRES earlier in July.
Fed six times a day from a dessert spoon by one of the hospital's nurses, this joey is a little bit like all of us in that she really, really loves food.
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"She gets really excited about food and can be quite a messy eater. She’ll grab hold of the spoon and pull it down so she ends up with milk all over her paws and stomach. I have to carefully clean her fur afterwards and wipe off her little milk moustache," vet nurse Felicity Evans said in a statement sent via email.
Vets needed to step in and feed the joey by hand, since her mother stopped producing milk after becoming entangled in the barbed wire fence. The mother also had a major tear in her gliding membrane.
Growing from 48 grams to 80 grams in two weeks under the hospital's care, the joey can be a handful despite its small size. "She's got a big personality for such a tiny animal. She climbs all over me and is very vocal if I have to wake her up for a feed. She doesn’t like being interrupted during sleep," Evans said.
Both mum and joey will remain at the hospital for a little while longer, as they recover from their ordeal. Due to the extent of the mother's injuries, she won't be released and will remain in care at Taronga, but her health is improving.
"Mum is eating well and healing nicely. Her range of movement is restricted, but she's working out what she can and can’t do and getting better with practice," Evans explained.
Topics Animals
