They’ve got this baby boy’s back.

A male koala’s mom died of cancer in mid-December while he was still in her pouch. Now, vets and wildlife care specialists at the San Diego Zoo are providing round-the-clock feeding and nurturing to save the orphan’s life.

“When his mother died, this little joey was too small to come out of the pouch and live on his own,” Becky Kier, lead neonatal assisted care specialist, said in a statement. “We weren’t convinced he would last the first week — but with intensive care, he is showing us he is a fighter.”

Adorable new footage released Wednesday by the facility showcases the fuzzy critter finding comfort in stuffed toys — and cuddling his new human caretakers.

Newborn koalas — called “joeys” — are typically about the size of a jelly bean, according to National Geographic. Born without ears, hair or sight, the baby instinctively uses its strong legs and hands to crawl from the birth canal into its mother’s pouch. Once there, the joey attaches to a nipple and drinks milk. The joey grows slowly, and at around 5 or 6 months old, begins to poke its head outside the pouch.

It was at that age when this joey lost his mom.

The little marsupial is now living part-time in a faux pouch inside an incubator, with the temperature and humidity set to simulate his mother, and fed a special milk replacement six times a day.

“While he has a long way to go, our team is doing everything we can for him,” Kier said, wiping a dribble of milk replacement from his chin. “And each day, we are more and more optimistic about his chance of survival.”

The joey was named Omeo (pronounced Ooh-me-ooh), an Aboriginal word that means “mountains” or “hills.”

He was given this name because of his uphill battle to survive — and in tribute to the koalas of Australia’s Blue Mountains, where a team led by Kellie Leigh, Ph.D., executive director of Science for Wildlife, is working to save koala habitats devastated by the recent bushfires, which ecologists said have killed nearly a half-billion animals.

The Blue Mountains World Heritage region is home to the most genetically diverse population of koalas in the world, and San Diego Zoo Global Wildlife Conservancy is raising emergency funds to help the population recover.

At 7-and-a-half months old, Omeo has now reached the stage where he would be venturing out of his mother’s pouch. To encourage exercise and exploration, Kier’s crew takes his pouch out of the incubator — and attaches it to a stuffed toy koala sitting in a custom-designed eucalyptus tree.

When Omeo awakes, he scampers out of the pouch and onto the back of his “stand-in mom.” Here, he sits amongst eucalyptus branches, where he uses his developing hand-eye coordination to grasp at leaves and chew on stems, the zoo reported.

He also has daily sunning sessions outside, where he is starting to learn the sights, sounds, and smells of the koalas around him, Kier said. When Omeo grows stronger, his caregivers will encourage him to rely on his own instincts to eat eucalyptus, climb on branches and eventually live in his own habitat in the zoo’s “Australian Outback” setting.