Rare white kiwi gets the surgery blues
Source: Agencies |
November 3, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
SHE'S grumpy, grouchy and packs a good kick. Just like a healthy kiwi should.
Manukura the white kiwi is among the rarest of birds. And she appears to have regained her mojo after a heart scare during surgery last Friday to remove a stone from her gizzard.
That means watch out - even if the six-month-old flightless bird weighs just one kilogram.
"You try to grab her and she kind of karate chops you," said veterinarian Lisa Argilla, at the Wellington Zoo, where Manukura is recuperating. "She growls and she grumbles and she's getting really stroppy."
Kiwi are nocturnal birds native to New Zealand; most are brown to help hide in the forest undergrowth. White kiwi, which lack a color gene, have been sighted in the wild, but Manukura is the first born in captivity.
When she was born on May 1 at the Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Center, native Maori leaders took it as an omen. Her Maori name means "of chiefly status" and some believe her arrival heralds a new beginning.
Although a little underweight, Manukura developed normally enough until about two weeks ago, when rangers at the wildlife center noticed she wasn't eating. She was taken to the zoo where an X-ray revealed she'd swallowed two stones, the larger of which was about the size of a gumball but she only managed to pass one of the stones naturally. So she was taken to the Wellington Hospital, where a urologist was able to zap the stone with a laser to reduce its size and then remove it through her beak, said Argilla.
Manukura the white kiwi is among the rarest of birds. And she appears to have regained her mojo after a heart scare during surgery last Friday to remove a stone from her gizzard.
That means watch out - even if the six-month-old flightless bird weighs just one kilogram.
"You try to grab her and she kind of karate chops you," said veterinarian Lisa Argilla, at the Wellington Zoo, where Manukura is recuperating. "She growls and she grumbles and she's getting really stroppy."
Kiwi are nocturnal birds native to New Zealand; most are brown to help hide in the forest undergrowth. White kiwi, which lack a color gene, have been sighted in the wild, but Manukura is the first born in captivity.
When she was born on May 1 at the Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Center, native Maori leaders took it as an omen. Her Maori name means "of chiefly status" and some believe her arrival heralds a new beginning.
Although a little underweight, Manukura developed normally enough until about two weeks ago, when rangers at the wildlife center noticed she wasn't eating. She was taken to the zoo where an X-ray revealed she'd swallowed two stones, the larger of which was about the size of a gumball but she only managed to pass one of the stones naturally. So she was taken to the Wellington Hospital, where a urologist was able to zap the stone with a laser to reduce its size and then remove it through her beak, said Argilla.
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