Only kangaroo at Popcorn Park Zoo passes away from deadly parasitic disease

Popcorn Park Zoo’s first-ever kangaroo passed away before the public had a chance to meet him.

Foster was a 1½ -year-old male kangaroo, which could have lived into his teens or 20s. He was brought to the Associated Humane Societies’ zoo in Lacey Township in late November, after he got loose a few times from his owner’s home in Staten Island.

“The owner thought he’d be safer here, where he can’t get hit by a car or something,” said John Bergmann, Popcorn Park Zoo general manager.

Photo via Popcorn Park Zoo
The kangaroo was brought to the zoo after
he escaped a few times from his owner's home.

It is legal to have a kangaroo, with the proper permits, in New York, he said.

“Foster was a great little guy, even through all of this. He was very personable. He wanted to come up to you and interact with you,” Bergmann said.

Foster was in quarantine at the park for only a few weeks, in early December, when staff noticed he was not eating. A blood test confirmed he had toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease that is deadly to kangaroos and wallabies. It is mostly passed on by infected cats that shed it in their stool. Bergmann said there are no cats at the park with the disease, and staff are “very cautious” about it when handling cats dropped off at the premises’ shelter.

“I don’t know how he got it, but kangaroos get it very easily if they’re around feral cats or something like that,” Bergmann stated.

There are no feral cats that hang around the zoo, he noted.

“He probably came with it. Chances are he picked it up anyplace. With the move and the new area and new things, his immune system probably went down a little bit. It’s a very opportunistic parasitic disease,” Bergmann explained.

Foster was initially responding to treatment, which included daily injections and oral medication. But his health suddenly deteriorated, and he quickly succumbed to the disease on Jan. 28.

“We were very concerned, and we started treatment right away,” Bergmann said. “He seemed like he was holding his own. He would have good days, and he had bad days. But he wasn’t getting real, real sick with it yet.

“Thursday morning he was OK, and that afternoon he just crashed. We tried fluid therapy, all kinds of things during the course of that day, but he didn’t make it. ”

Toxoplasmosis can spread to other animals and people, but Bergmann said he and Foster’s other caretaker took precautions when handling the kangaroo.

“I don’t have any other kangaroos or wallabies here, so it wouldn’t be deadly to anything else,” he said.

Bergmann does not know if the zoo will get another kangaroo in the future.

“We don’t go looking for stuff; stuff tends to find us. That’s what we’re here for,” he said.

— Kelley Anne Essinger

This article was published in The SandPaper.