Meet The Very Rare And Very Adorable Albino Wallaby Born At This Zoo

Manhattan, Kansas. The Sunset Zoo has more than 200 interesting animals at their 26-acre park, and it’s open 360 days a year to let visitors get up-close and personal with creatures big and small.

From primates to flamingos to cheetahs and hyenas, the zoo has a wide array of animals.

The latest addition to the Sunset Zoo is a very rare and very adorable albino wallaby that was most likely born last December but only recently started making an appearance out of mom’s pouch last month.

The Sunset Zookeepers chose to name the wallaby Bruny, which is an island close to Tasmania that happens to be where approximately 200 albino wallabies roam free.

Bruny has one brown-colored sibling named Arlo, and zookeepers are not sure quite yet if Bruny is a girl or a boy.

“Wallabies are a species of miniature Kangaroo native to Australia. Sunset Zoo has three adult Wallabies in addition to the two joeys who live in the Australian Walkabout exhibit,” the Sunset Zoo explained in a statement.

“Albino wallabies are caused by a genetic defect that throws off the balance of melanin in the marsupials.”

Sunset Zoo, courtesy of their Animal Keeper Amelia Jerome; pictured above is Bruny

Although albino wallabies don’t have a long-expected survival rate in the wild because of their eye-catching coat color, on Bruny Island, they actually do quite well since there are not any animals that prey on them there.

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Rob Vernon, the Senior Vice President for Communications and Strategy for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said that “Albino wallabies are fairly common in Australia, where private zoos breed for the recessive trait.”

Although common over in Australia, it really is not so common here in America.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (also shortened to the AZA) oversees an accredited number of more than 240 zoos here in America, and the AZA doesn’t let zoos breed for albinism.

The Sunset Zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and Bruny is a happy accident since they did not intentionally try to breed to create an albino wallaby.

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