Amara is a young southern white rhinoceros at Knowsley Safari in Prescot, UK. She's just under two years old and was noticed to be limping earlier this year. Rest and pain medication didn't help, so the zoo consulted with veterinarians from the University of Liverpool. Scans revealed that Amara had a broken ulna and needed surgery. How do you perform this kind of surgery on a rhino? Very carefully. In fact, it had never been done before.
The university sent a team of ten large animal veterinarians to perform the five-hour surgery. But they had never operated on a rhinoceros -they specialize in horses. And who knows the amount of anesthesia to give a juvenile rhino that weighs 800 kilgrams (1,760 pounds)? But Amara came through the surgery just fine and her leg was fitted with a cast. She spent the next six months confined to a paddock with her mother, but now the cast has been removed. Veterinarians will continue to monitor the condition of Amara's leg, but she is doing well and back to playing with the other rhinos in the park. Click to the right on the image above to see Amara.
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