From keas suffering bone marrow collapse to lizards needing experimental dental surgery, Auckland zoo vets have had a busy year.
The latest annual report from the zoo, released yesterday, has shown its vets treated 588 cases of animal distress - broken bones to parasites and stress-related disorders, this year.
While Kashin the elephant's euthanasia on August 24 was the most headline grabbing - and created a record-setting memorial day with 18,600 visitors - the zoo saw a total of 151 births, 55 new arrivals from elsewhere, and 118 deaths.
And it coped with an annual total of 653,524 total visitors.
Amongst the notable new arrivals was the birth of healthy giraffe calf Jelani (meaning Mighty in Swahili) in early March.
The kiwi breeding program also continued to inspire hope for our struggling national bird, with March 1 marking the 200th brown kiwi chick hatched through the BNZ Operation Nest Egg program.
The year gone by also sparked optimism for another of our nation's beleaguered birds, an endangered New Zealand dotterel will soon to be on display for the first time in six years once it heals from a wing injury.
The situation was bleaker for the zoo's golden cat population. With father Kuching being put down due to cancer and his recently born kittens dying due to unknown causes, mother Singha is likely to be shipped off to Europe as New Zealand gives up on the species' breeding programme.
Paukena, an unfortunate male kea, had a terrible reaction to a de-worming drug that caused a complete collapse of his bone marrow cells, destroying his immune system.
After being on a drip for several days Paukena seemed to recover from the disorder but a series of relapses eventually saw the poor kea die in June.
In between the notable births and demises, everyday life at the zoo continued in its often weirdly exotic way.
The orangutan population at the zoo this year managed to extend their infamous charms by developing a communal case of diarrhoea that left zoo clinicians baffled as to the source. The messy outbreak needed to be treated with a hospital-only drug imported from Sydney.
Not to be outdone, Nyack the porcupine developed his own set of perplexing symptoms including a sudden head tilt, lack of appetite, and abnormal rapid eye movement for a 12-hour period.
A CT scan of the befuddled rodent showed he had developed an inner ear abscess, the draining of which returned the porcupine "virtually" back to normal.
A tiny short-tailed bat put veterinary specialists to the test when she presented with a series of inflammatory eye problems. The ailment was fairly unremarkable but the eye itself, measuring just 1mm in diameter, proved something of a hurdle.
The local bearded dragons copped the reptiles' share of clinical misadventure.
Patterson had a problematic hip joint successfully removed through treatment usually for cats rather than lizards, leaving his leg solely supported by surrounding muscles. He walked away with nothing more severe than a slight limp.
Buddy, another bearded dragon, finally found relief from a lingering 30-month jaw infection in an experimental dental procedure typically reserved for humans. With his jaw drilled into and the infection drained Buddy had the bone filled with calcium hydroxide.
Both dragons have made good progress in recent months.
