Physiotherapy for zoo's recovering animals

OLIVIA WANNAN

June 13 2015

ROSS GIBLIN and CAMERON BURNELL/Dominion Post

Wellington Zoo vet nurse Sarah van Herpt gets up close and personal to Fiordland crested penguins and a kea.

Physiotherapy is not an easy thing to get recovering animals at Wellington Zoo's Nest hospital to undertake. So vet nurse Sarah van Herpt has to be creative.

The Nest nurses hundreds of native birds brought in with illnesses and injuries every year. The small enclosures that allow them to heal also mean when they have recovered, many are out-of-shape and unstimulated - and like many of their human counterparts, will not do prescribed physio exercises without some form of reward.

Unfit birds will choose to walk rather than fly, so zoo staff will position their favourite treats so they can only reach them by giving their wings some much-needed exercise, van Herpt said.

Cameron Burnell/Fairfax NZ

 

Wellington Zoo vet nurse Sarah van Herpt works at rehabilitating two Fiordland crested penguins, known as Henry and Gary.

For parrots like kea and kaka, keeping their brains stimulated is as important as giving their muscles a work-out.

"We do things like hiding their food, in things like woven flax baskets and cardboard boxes," she said. "We tailor it to the individual birds. We just released two kaka, and they really liked the enrichment using bamboo shoots, stuffing it with paper or drilling holes in it and putting seeds in so they have to roll it around."

Van Herpt presented her tips and experiences at an international conference zoo and wildlife organisations in Beijing last month.

Cameron Burnell/Fairfax NZ

 

A kea at The Nest hospital, recovering from surgeries to remove fungal growths, is now in a special "rehab" aviary designed by van Herpt to exercise his brain and flight muscles, little used while he was healing.

One of her biggest challenges recently was a serval, an African wild cat, who injured his paw while playing with another serval in the zoo's enclosure. The cat was terrible at leaving the wound alone to heal, van Herpt said.

"We tried distasteful bandages, but probably because he was in pain, he was trying to eat it off all the time, and succeeding. We gave him lots of scents, because he really loved scents - things like perfume and salmon juice, but also things like wallaby bedding once they were dirty.
"He loved it. He'd sniff it a lot, and rub his face in and just sit in it."

Cameron Burnell/Fairfax NZ

 

The kea is treated to a macadamia nut after working out how to open one of the four differently-opening lids, keeping his bird brain sharp.

Two Fiordland crested penguins, one recovering from a seal attack and the other a respiratory illness, are currently living the good life being hand-fed fish. Ethically, the zoo could not give them live fish but the risk was they would lose vital skills they will need on their return to the wild, she said.

"We don't want them going up to people asking for fish. We've tried a few things with them and one of the things that's been semi-successful is plastic bottles with tinfoil and confetti and water inside, which looks like fish scales. Giving them fake fish should help with hunting."

She said such activities were one of the most enjoyable parts of her job, though the focus was rehabilitation rather than circus tricks. "It's not just about giving animals toys or fun things, you've really got to think what the purpose is behind it."

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