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A new observation theater at a zoo in northern New Jersey lets visitors see animals get live medical treatments.
Veterinarians at the Turtle Back Zoo hope the new installation educates people on the care that animals receive at the zoo while inspiring kids to pursue medicine as a profession.
One morning, visitors peered through a large glass window into a new, spacious treatment room, watching as a middle-aged female turkey vulture with arthritis underwent a 30-minute wellness check. During the exam, she was anesthetized, X-rayed, had her eyes and wings examined, had blood drawn, and was microchipped.
The animal wound up at the zoo after breaking its wing in the wild.
The experience was new not only for the turkey vulture but also a novelty for many of the onlookers, because few zoos offer a window on veterinary care.
The Turtle Back Zoo, this year, joined the relatively few U.S. zoos that routinely give the public a view of veterinary care. While there’s no exact count, it’s perhaps a dozen or fewer of the 250 animal parks accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
In an era when social media campaigns and lawsuits have questioned the well-being of captive animals, some zoos see putting vets on view as a form of transparency.
The compact, suburban Turtle Back Zoo is recognized for its contributions to conserving clouded leopards and caring for ailing wild sea turtles. More whimsically, it’s known for fostering a friendship between a cheetah and Labrador retriever that had a social media moment.
Opened in 1963, the county-owned zoo was threatened with closure amid financial problems and poor attendance in the mid-1990s. A steady march of renovations and additions in the 2000s turned things around, and it now draws nearly 1 million visitors per year.
In recent years, a need to upgrade the animal hospital evolved into a plan for a multi-million-dollar new building. Financed with county, state, and federal grants, it opened in April and lets visitors see into areas including the treatment and surgical rooms.
The Barry H. Ostrowsky Animal Wellness Center also includes rooms for quarantine, nursery, and data research.
This article was provided by The Associated Press.