This mass of rock stretches for more than a mile and is part of the Continental Divide—the long line of high elevations that zigzags its way north and south across the continent and separates river systems that flow to the Pacific from those that flow to the Atlantic.
I had seen Brooks Mountain many times, and it always struck me as magnificent, but at that moment, something else caught my attention.
Across the clearing stood a coyote.
It’s not that the sight of a coyote was a heart-stopping shock. It wasn’t. All sorts of animals big and small roamed the countryside. I had seen eagles soaring above the cliffs, black bears nibbling berries, herds of elk grazing in open meadows, and more.
Coyotes were common, too, but they were skittish. Ranchers hunted them, afraid that the carnivores would harm their livestock. Consequently, coyotes had learned to quickly run away when they saw or smelled a human approaching.
Not this coyote. He and I were having a staring contest.
He didn’t seem the least bit afraid, just curious about this two-legged creature sitting atop a four-legged creature across the meadow. Something else was different about him. Even from a distance I could tell that he was larger than any coyote I had ever seen. His legs were longer and his face broader.
Then it hit me. This wasn’t a coyote at all. It was a wolf!
Glendora became restless. She snorted and neighed, shook her head several times, and stepped in place nervously. “Easy, girl,” I said as I gently patted her neck. Glendora calmed down, but I wanted a closer look, so I coaxed her to slowly follow the edge of the clearing and head toward the wolf.
I learned two things about wolves that day—they’re smart and they’re curious. While we circled the edge of the clearing, the wolf did, too, in the same direction so as to keep the same distance between us. His yellow eyes stayed locked on mine as we both circled the meadow. Eventually we each ended up where the other had stood.
The wolf inspected where Glendora had trampled the grass. He showed no signs of fear, no signs of aggression, only cool curiosity. What were we? Were we a threat? He seemed to be pondering these questions. I watched, fascinated, and wondered what conclusions he had drawn.
I couldn’t take my eyes off this large, furry, doglike creature—a predator that I had long heard was an aggressive, vicious, unforgiving killer. I saw none of that. All I saw was intelligence and fearlessness…but only for a minute longer. Then, the wolf simply turned and trotted away and disappeared among the pines.
Eventually, I found the stray horses. They were safe and sound, but I never saw the wolf again. No wonder. I later discovered that seeing a wolf at that time in that place—my very first wolf sighting—had been an incredibly rare event. In 1959 as few as 15 wolves lived in the U.S. Rocky Mountains, and I had seen one of them. I wouldn’t see another for 30 years.
And when I did, it would change my life forever.
The zookeeper burst through the doorway. The front of her T-shirt was untucked, with the bottom folded up like a soft taco shell, and her hands clearly cradled an object within.
“It’s a joey!” the keeper exclaimed. An involuntary gasp escaped my lips as the keeper revealed the precious cargo she was carrying—a tiny, hairless baby kangaroo.
“What happened?” my colleagues and I asked in unison.
“The mother rejected him,” she replied hurriedly. “I don’t know why.”
The keeper, sweating on this hot day in May at Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., quickly explained that the mother kangaroo had kicked the joey out of her pouch. A visitor had seen the horrifying incident and contacted the zookeeper, who rushed into the enclosure, picked up the squirming youngster, and brought him to me and two other keepers at the zoo hospital.
The baby kangaroo was no bigger than the length of my hand. Like all joeys, he would normally live inside his mother’s pouch for six months after birth before developing enough to venture outside now and then. But this poor little guy, who we called Rufus, was only three months old and completely helpless. He would never survive without the care of his mother—or without the care of three determined zookeepers.
We were the only chance Rufus had. We had to mimic the conditions of a mother kangaroo in every possible way, including the soft, moist, and warm environment within her pouch. But how?
Part of the answer was clear—make a substitute pouch. We fashioned a number of comfortable pouches out of soft cotton pillowcases. To hold in body moisture, we covered Rufus with a special kind of skin cream. For warmth, we placed him inside one of the cotton pouches and set it in a heated incubator about the size of a large aquarium.
Food presented another set of challenges. Baby kangaroos eat every two hours, day and night, and Rufus was no exception. We mixed up a nutritious formula that was similar to his mother’s milk. Then we fed him using baby bottles topped with nipples that were the length and shape of his mother’s.
Joeys have a weak immune system, so we took every precaution to prevent infections. Each time we fed him or handled him for any reason in those first few months, we wore surgical gowns, gloves, and masks. We washed and bleached his pouches after every feeding so there would always be a stack of them ready to use.
To provide the round-the-clock care that a joey needs, we took turns taking Rufus and his incubator home every evening. Those were sleepless nights. After donning my surgical garb, feeding Rufus, wrapping him in a fresh pouch, getting him settled, and changing my clothes, I’d barely close my eyes before it was time to do it all over again.
Needless to say, after such a night I was groggy the next morning at work. So what better way to shake off the cobwebs than to hop around the office? Literally. A few times each day, I or one of the other “kangaroo moms” would cradle Rufus in his pouch and hop around our hospital office for a few minutes. Not just any old hop, either. No, this was a regular dance. Hop, hop, hop, dip to the left. Hop, hop, hop, dip to the right. Repeat and repeat and repeat!
The dance was hilarious. It was also absolutely necessary. The hopping mimicked the movements Rufus would have received inside his mother’s pouch. Such movements are essential to develop the joey’s circulatory and digestive systems. And that’s what we explained to any perplexed visitor who happened by the office in the middle of a kangaroo dance.
All of the loving care paid off. Rufus grew into a healthy and playful young kangaroo. After six months or so, we no longer had to cradle him. Instead we hung his pouch on a doorknob, and he could hop in and out as he pleased.
I can still see him grabbing the pouch, launching himself off the floor, and diving in headfirst. A hodgepodge of limbs and tail stick out for a brief moment, then disappear inside. The pouch churns like a tongue rolling against the inside of a cheek. Suddenly up pops a head. The mischievous look on his face was priceless.
So was the experience of caring for this little life. Rufus took us on an exhausting, emotional roller coaster, and I wouldn’t have traded the wild ride for anything. Taking care of Rufus and other at-risk creatures at the zoo was never a job to me—it was a passion, a passion born out of my love for animals.
