When a 600-gram hairless red kangaroo joey tumbled from her mother's pouch in October 2025, she almost faced certain death as she was far too young to survive on her own.

At Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo in east China's Jiangsu Province, keepers had already noticed something unusual days before the joey fell off. One of her legs had been sticking out of her mother's pouch.

They determined that the young mother's pouch was too small to support her growing joey and began months of hand-rearing.

The joey was named Xiaoshu, or "Little Tree," a symbol of resilience and new life.

At first, keepers sewed an artificial pouch to keep Xiaoshu in a temperature-controlled incubator and fed her specialized milk formula every three hours. As no formula designed specifically for red kangaroos was available, the team adapted one intended for sugar gliders, carefully adjusting the nutritional content to meet Xiaoshu's developmental needs.

Keeping Xiaoshu alive was only the first step. More challenges arose as she grew up.

The keepers noticed that Xiaoshu always trembled when standing up. As a marsupial, a young kangaroo normally spends some eight months inside the mother's pouch, gradually building muscle, exploring the outside world by poking its head out. Xiaoshu had missed those early lessons.

The alternative was for the keepers to gradually encourage her to stand and exercise her legs. They took her outdoors to experience sunshine and introduced soil, grass and scents from the kangaroo enclosure into her daily environment. Later, they slowly brought her into contact with other kangaroos, allowing her to acquire beneficial microbes and learn natural behaviors from the group.

In the beginning, Xiaoshu followed her keepers everywhere. But as time passed, she began venturing farther away, nibbling on grass, sniffing the ground and mingling with other kangaroos.

Now weighing over 8 kilograms, Xiaoshu has become part of the kangaroo family. Her story reflects a philosophy that runs through Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo: wildlife rescue is not simply about saving an animal's life, but allowing them to behave as they naturally would.

Executive producer: Zhang Jingwen

Producer: Yang Sha

Directors: Chen Hongyu, Zhong Xia, Wang Yuxin, Zong Shukang

Videographers: Gao Shengwei, Chen Jiazheng, Chen Hongyu

Cover: Yu Peng