At a quiet, off-view area at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, wildlife care staff are celebrating a momentous milestone—the hatching of an endangered lappet-faced vulture chick.

The San Diego Zoo Safari Park wildlife care specialists know how popular the Safari Park’s annual spring Butterfly Jungle event is to the thousands of guests who visit each year. While the Safari Park is temporarily closed to on-grounds visitors due to COVID-19 restrictions, dedicated teams of wildlife care specialists and horticulturists are still busy working hard to care for the thousands of butterflies, plants and other wildlife that live inside the Hidden Jungle aviary.

A koala moved quickly out of a caretaker’s arms and up into a tall eucalyptus tree, while wildlife care specialists looked on. This koala is a member of an important group of the species that returned to their home in the Blue Mountains of Australia this past weekend. 

An 8-month-old koala joey being cared for round the clock by San Diego Zoo wildlife care specialists is thriving. The male koala joey, named Omeo (pronounced Ooh-me-ooh), lost his mother due to cancer in mid-December, when he was about 5-and-a-half months old and was still in her pouch.