Animal Diaries Archive

Little Damo the fighter

31 March 2006

When planning exhibits for the future, you need to plan the animals too. Given that alligators are hard to come by in Australia, we began breeding them a few years ago, so by the time the new exhibit is ready, they will have grown into adults.

One of these little blighters-to-be was named Damo because of his true blue fighting spirit. Little Damo got off to a bad start, though, as he could not excrete or absorb the last of his egg yolk.

When leaving his little body to its own devices failed to correct this, we had to operate on him - even though this meant sedating the little tacker, which we definitely don’t like to do because they generally don’t handle it very well. After an awesome operation by the skilled people at our animal hospital, little Damo is doing quite well and he has started eating and putting on weight.

Damian from the Crocodile Department, who is the inspiration for his name, assures us little Damo won't give up without a real fight. Until next time, crocs and little Damo RULE!