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.
That love began long before I ever dreamed of working at the zoo. In fact, it was evident to others when I was only a few years old, when my hands held not animals but crayons.
The first recognizable picture I ever drew was an elephant. At least, that’s what my grandmother told me, and I believe her. When I wasn’t drawing pictures of animals, I was reading about them. If there was an animal on the cover, that’s the book I opened. Even well into my teens, I would trade a mystery or adventure novel for a book about animals any day.
Drawings and stories sparked my imagination, but what I enjoyed most were my outdoor adventures, where I was in the animals’ world. As a young girl, I loved exploring the woods behind my house in suburban Washington, D.C., searching for wildlife. Those woods were my wilderness. I could lose all track of time wandering among the oak and hickory trees, turning over fallen leaves and peeking under logs in search of salamanders and frogs.
I kept my eyes peeled for snakes, too. Not to avoid them, but to get a good look at them! They didn’t give me the willies like they do some people. Instead, I was mesmerized by their colors and patterns, by how they moved and what they did.
My suburban wilderness was also home to larger animals, like white-tailed deer. But that’s not all. When I was seven years old, I heard that someone had spotted a black bear in a nearby wooded park. I searched those woods for days. I imagined what I would say to the bear if we met. No doubt we would like each other. In fact, I let myself believe that we would become friends.
I never did find the bear. And as I grew older and learned more about wildlife, I realized that a human and a wild animal could not become friends. At least, that’s what all the experts said.
My passion for wildlife only grew. After college, I tried to settle down and live a “normal” life, apart from all things wild. But animals were never far from my mind. I longed to be part of their world. So, in my mid-20s, I made two decisions that allowed me to follow my passion.
First, after working at a small-animal clinic, I decided to apply for a job at the National Zoo. There at the hospital I took care of sick, injured, or other at-risk animals, like Rufus.
The second decision ended up being the most monumental one of my life. I took a trip to Africa.
I traveled with a friend to Zimbabwe to photograph some of that African country’s amazing wildlife. I had always enjoyed photography, and this was a chance of a lifetime to see elephants, gazelles, lions,