A baby kangaroo that jumped from its pouch and out of a truck at the Little Rock Air Force Base died after going missing for several hours before its body was found Monday morning, according to the central Arkansas petting zoo it belonged to.
Cockrill's Country Critters, a Cabot-based petting zoo that functions throughout the region, said in a Facebook post that the baby kangaroo, named Hoppy, escaped through an open window in the truck it was in Sunday.
The 19th Force Support Squadron said the animal was 9 months old.
The traveling petting zoo said it had taken the kangaroo to a weekend event before it went missing.
Volunteers chased the animal but could not find it after searching for several hours, the petting zoo's post said. At some point, someone spotted the baby kangaroo behind a medical clinic on the air base.
"We went there but no sign of him," the post said.
An air base member found the kangaroo's body Monday morning and notified the petting zoo.
A girl who had a form of rare cancer named the baby animal Hoppy before she died, according to the petting zoo.
"This kangaroo was very special to us," the company's post said.
Cockrill's Country Critters advertises events featuring three kangaroos as well as baby kangaroos throughout central Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana,
It wasn't immediately known how the baby kangaroo died.
State Desk on 04/30/2019