Lifesaving surgery performed on starving wildlife animal
A TOOWOOMBA vet has saved the life of a wildlife animal who had become caught in plastic and hadn’t eaten in weeks.
Toowoomba
Don't miss out on the headlines from Toowoomba. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A TOOWOOMBA vet has performed lifesaving surgery on a particularly prickly patient who became caught in plastic, and hadn't eaten in weeks.
Toowoomba Veterinary Hospital practice manager Gillian Spanner said it was lucky the echidna had been brought in when she was.
She said the animal was located in Mt Lofty by a client of the hospital who brought her in immediately.
"This poor little thing, it had what looked like a plumbing washer around its little beak," she said.
"It was still snuffling but it couldn't eat anything and it looked like it had been there for quite some time."
Dr Paul Sheedy used general anaesthetic to sedate the animal before removing the ring from its beak during emergency surgery.
Mrs Spanner said the situation was "pretty dire" given the ring was stopping the echidna from eating and drinking, and the outcome could have been tragic if she was found any later.
"We think it was probably on there for a couple of weeks," she said.
"How it survived in that length of time we're a bit puzzled by.
"It could not open its little beak at all.
"It would have become completely infected and it probably would have passed away before it even got to that stage because you can't survive without food and water, even an echidna."
Mrs Spanner said the incident served as a harsh reminder to the public to be mindful when throwing rubbish away, and said it wasn't uncommon for wildlife animals to be brought into the surgery under similar circumstances.
"Wildlife is different to your pet in the backyard who will invariably eat something in the backyard especially when they're puppies," she said.
"We can perform surgery quite often trying to remove foreign bodies from a puppy's belly.
"With wildlife you find all sorts of things that get stuck."
