Back in July, I posted some info on a field trip up to Venus Bay Conservation Park to look at the health of brush-tailed bettongs (also known as 'woylies'), which were re-released into the park in 1994.

 At the end of October I went up to Venus Bay to join DEH ecologists and rangers for a second round of trapping. All animals trapped are anaesthetised for a clinical examination, blood sampling, skin biopsy for DNA analysis and collection of parasites.

This information gives us a good indication of how the population is going. Repeating this at different times of year gives us a good idea of any normal differences between seasons, and allows us to follow trends over time to detect any problems early.

Even when you know it’s the right thing to do, euthanasing an animal because of a debilitating incurable disease is always done with heavy heart – especially when that animal had been around for as long, and had touched as many zoo staff and visitors, as Dewi, one of our Malayan sun bears.

When the time came, keepers from around the zoo came to see Dewi for one last time, and her primary keeper came in on her day off to say goodbye.

Saw a White-bellied Sea Eagle this morning, brought in by the Australian Marine Wildlife Research and Rescue Organization (AMWRRO). A beautiful bird with impressive powerful talons that we made sure we avoided!

Just got back from a trip with one of the keepers taking two male American Plains Bison from Monarto Zoo over to the zoo at Hall's Gap in Victoria. All went incredibly smoothly... well, except for it taking 2 hours to get them to walk up the raceway into the trailer – nothing happens with 800kg bison bulls until they're good and ready! Once on board they just sat down and enjoyed the ride. When we opened the trailer at the other end, they wandered out and started eating.

Animal moves are a common occurrence between zoos. Many species held in zoos are managed as a regional population; in most cases a single zoo is unable to keep enough animals for a viable long-term population. A stud-book keeper makes breeding recommendations to maximise genetic diversity and minimise inbreeding in the population. As a result, animals are often moved to between zoos to allow them to breed with their 'perfect match'. Another reason for animal moves between zoos is for non-breeding animals to be held until their time comes, thus freeing up space for the animals who are breeding.

We recently said goodbye to Cubba, our Persian leopard. Born here at Adelaide Zoo, Cubba had lived a long healthy life and rarely required veterinary attention. About a month ago, Cubba was found suddenly lame on his right front leg one morning with an obvious swelling just above his wrist.

Hi Everyone.

Recently back from my third trip up to Venus Bay on the Eyre Peninsula to catch and health check endangered brush-tailed bettongs, or woylies, with ecologists and rangers from DEH. Check back on my posts in July and November for more information on this project.

With 3 trips now under our belts we are putting together a really good picture of the health of this very important population of bettongs. Venus Bay is a beautiful location to be able to spend time in. If you haven't been over to the Eyre Peninsula before, start making plans to!

Dave McLelland, Zoos SA Vet

This is such a great time of year in Adelaide. I moved to SA in 2008 so last year was my first Fringe, my first Womad... I love it. And it's so great that Adelaide Zoo is such a part of it all; even more so from this year with the new spaces for performance and exhibition at the new front entrance of the zoo.

Earlier this week the bird keepers found that one of our plum-headed parrot chicks had a severe fracture up the right side of the upper beak. The bird was rushed up to the health centre as front part of the beak was at risk of being ripped completely off if it happened to get hooked on something.

Back in September, we were approached by the Department of Environment and Heritage to help with investigating a skin disease in bats at the caves in Naracoorte. The Southern Bentwing Bat is listed as critically endangered so an apparently emerging disease in this population is concerning for the future of the species.

Hi Everyone

Apologies for the lack of entries in recent times. It's been a busy time for all of us recently.

Wayne, our Head Vet, is over in China at the moment with Senior Panda Keeper, Simone, and Assistant Curator, Jason, to become better acquainted with Wang Wang and Funi. They will all fly back together at the end of November. See Simone's Panda Blog for more details of their trip to China.

Meanwhile, our head vet nurse Dianne is busy ensuring everything is organised for their post-arrival quarantine, which will be overseen by AQIS.

Other things going on for the health centre recently include Ian accompanying a giraffe to Australia Zoo, health checking bettongs on the Eyre Peninsula, Lynley taking some time off to work on her Masters in Conservation Medicine, and disease investigation in bentwing bats at Naracoorte Caves.

Will give a bit more information on some of these in subsequent posts.

Dave

The zoo collection is going along OK at the moment. A Veiled Chameleon in quarantine at the moment in settling in and feeding well. A Woma Python in the reptile house had a prolapsed of its cloaca which thankfully was resolved fairly easily; these can be difficult to deal with in some instances, and he looks to be recovering well with treatment. One of the Fallow Deer in the Children's Zoo injured its knee over the weekend, and at one stage we were contemplating surgery. But, thankfully, she looks to be improving with medication and limiting the area she has to run around in.

Speaking of the kids zoo, we have had three goat kids born in the last week which are very cute! All checked out well when we looked at them, and both mums are doing their jobs splendidly.

Next time I am on blog duty we will have pandas in quarantine. The excitement is building!

David McLelland

Hi everyone,

It's always a bit of a grind to back into the swing of things at work after being away for a long time. Have been back a few weeks now from the Warru field trip and 3 weeks in North America and the jetlag is just about gone!

The Warru (Black-flanked Rock Wallaby) trip up in the APY Lands near Ernabella went great. It is beautiful country up there and the opportunity to work alongside the local Anangu people was a wonderful experience. This trip was the latest in a series of expeditions to assess the populations in northern South Australia, which has suffered significant declines in recent times, primarily due to fox predation.

Dare I say it, it's been a quiet week so far for us in the Animal Health Centre. Which is good as we are a couple of vets down. Wayne is on leave and Lynley is unfortunately off sick.

Ian is holding fort at Monarto. There are two baboons in pre-export quarantine up there due to be shipped to Auckland Zoo this week, and will require a visual veterinary check prior to shipment. Last week he had to euthanase one of our elderly male cheetah who had been managed for chronic kidney disease for some time – never a pleasant task, but in the interests of quite a sick cheetah.

My attentions are again focussed outside the zoo. Today is my last day at work before I head up to the APY Lands with Ian and two keepers, Gayle and Heidi, to join a team from DEH and Adelaide Uni to look at black-flanked rock wallabies (or 'warru'), a threatened species in South Australia.

In addition to conducting health checks, we are taking lots of samples for ongoing research projects, and appropriately sized pouch young will be taken from the pouch, flown back down and fostered onto rock wallabies at Adelaide and Monarto Zoos. The mother will give birth to another joey soon afterwards, allowing many more joeys to be raised each year than would otherwise be the case. This technique has also been used for the Victorian brush-tailed rock wallaby, as seen recently on the channel 7 program 'The Zoo'. So, I am busy getting all our equipment ready to go, so we can hit the road early on Sunday morning.

Hi everyone, Dave here. My turn again this week.

Thought I'd begin this week by telling you about a recent trip up to Venus Bay on the Eyre Peninsula to assist staff from the Department of Environment and Heritage (DEH) to investigate an apparent decline in the population of brush-tailed bettongs (or 'woylies') in a fenced reserve there. This species once ranged across southern Australia from Perth to the Gold Coast. It was decimated by cats and foxes.

Went out to Cleland this morning as Lynley is off this week. Unfortunately we had to euthanase the mallee fowl she was treating for aspergillosis (a fungal infection in the lung).

Hello again from Dave.

Had a busy weekend even though I wasn't working! Saturday I came in to help Lynley anaesthetise our male lion Mujambi. He had a seizure on exhibit on Friday. This the second, possibly third, seizure that he has had, but this time one of the females attacked him while he was fitting and injured his back leg quite badly.