Aerial Predator Likely Snatched Missing Detroit Zoo Wallaby

ROYAL OAK, MI — A 5-month-old wallaby joey that went missing from the Detroit Zoo's habitat Sunday was most likely snatched from the air by a predator, likely a hawk or an owl, Detroit Zoo officials said.

"There are native predators that live here, like owls and hawks," Detroit Zoological Society Chief Life Sciences Officer Scott Carter told the Detroit News. "And we can't overlook the possibility that an owl or a hawk took the joey."

Although the baby joey was about the size of a rabbit, Carter told WDIV zoo officials searched the entire 2-acre habitat that's home to eleven kangaroos and two wallabies and couldn't find any possible way the wallaby could have escaped the zoo.

Carter also said it's unlikely a guest took the baby joey because there are zoo volunteers everywhere in the habitat, and the wallaby would have just run away to its mother.

"He wouldn’t, and his mom wouldn’t have tolerated someone just walking up to them," Carter told the news station. "They would have run away."

Detroit Zoo officials said they have never seen an animal disappear from the zoo like what happened to the baby joey over the weekend. Officials said they last saw the joey, who they estimated was between 5 and 6 months old, Saturday afternoon.

Zoo officials asked guests and people who live near the zoo to watch out for the baby joey, however, they don't think the wallaby will turn up alive since it cannot live without its mother.