Happy Animals

Rottnest Island is among the most isolated places you can travel to on Earth. It’s also one of the only places you can meet a quokka—an animal the size of a house cat with the body of a kangaroo that happens to have the resting face of a teddy bear that went viral when Roger Federer took a selfie with it last year. Rest assured, though, the photo’s popularity had every bit as much to do with the quokka as it did with the 20-time Grand Slam champion. That is, nearly every #quokka selfie on Instagram—Federer or no Federer—goes viral. And so, this tiny island off the west coast of Australia has now become a global magnet for selfie tourism. And all because of one very happy animal.