Animal Diaries Archive

Buddha's Back

3 June 2005

Australia Zoo's crocodile team are very pleased to announce that Buddha, our three-year-old American Alligator has finally returned home to be with his twelve brothers. Unfortunately Buddha received a bit of an injury to his back right leg, which could only be treated if he was isolated from the rest of his family. Such is the passion of the croc team for all forms of crocodilians, we had no dramas in giving Buddha round the clock care and treatment in order to increase his chances of a full recovery. Frequent visits to the Koala and Wildlife Hospital vet, along with administering our own treatments, meant that Buddha spent quite some time away from the rest of his brothers.

To make sure that his injury healed well, Buddha was only allowed a short amount of time in the water each day. For poor Buddha this must have felt like some kind of cruel joke, however it was a required action we needed to take in order to aid in the healing of his injury. Now that he is back with his brothers, he can look forward to spending time at our purpose built alligator conditioning enclosure located on the grass at "Grey Roo Heaven". In here guests can come and meet our juvenile alligators and have a one on one "hands on"� experience. This allows them to not only look at our alligators, but touch and feel as well. This is a brand new initiative of the croc team and is proving to be extremely popular with guests, and it's great for our alligators. We are really starting to notice just how relaxed the alligators are becoming as a result of the time and effort we have put in to their handling and conditioning over the past three years. We are continuing to do alligator photos twice a day with the boys and with most measuring in at over three feet in length. The photos are very impressive, even if you are unfortunate enough to turn up on a day where Herby or Damo are doing the photos. I say this because you may be a little disappointed when you realise you have to sit really close to these croc boys in the photo... scary stuff! We will continue to work our magic with these little critters and will keep you posted on their progress.

Until next time Crocs rule