A TEAM of eye specialists has carried out sight-saving surgery on a rare breed of penguin that lives at Chester Zoo. Four-year-old Munch, a Humboldt penguin, was experiencing blindness in both of his eyes from cataracts, a disorder which creates cloudy patches on the lens which get bigger overtime. Bird conservationists noticed the issue when Munch was having difficulty catching fish during feeding times and started bumping into other members of the zoo s colony of Humboldt penguins - a species listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as vulnerable to extinction. Following an assessment by the zoo’s team of on-site vets, it was decided that only specialist treatment could save Munch s sight, and so animal optical care experts at Eye Vet were called in to help perform the zoo’s first ever penguin cataracts operation.
Vets carry out sight-saving surgery on penguin at Chester Zoo
A team of eye specialists have carried out sight-saving surgery on a penguin at Chester Zoo.
Four-year-old Munch, a Humboldt penguin at the zoo, was found to be experiencing blindness in both of his eyes from cataracts, a disorder which creates cloudy patches on the lens which get bigger overtime.
Bird conservationists noticed the issue when Munch was having difficulty catching fish during feeding times and started bumping into other members of the zoo’s colony of Humboldt penguins – a species listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as vulnerable to extinction.
A RARE Humboldt penguin at Chester Zoo is well on the way to a full recovery after becoming the first of its kind to have sight-saving surgery. A team of eye specialists were called to help four-year-old Munch, a Humboldt penguin, who was experiencing blindness in both of his eyes from cataracts, a disorder which creates cloudy patches on the lens which get bigger overtime. Bird conservationists noticed the issue when Munch was having difficulty catching fish during feeding times and started bumping into other members of the zoo s colony of Humboldt penguins - a species listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as vulnerable to extinction.
A RARE Humboldt penguin at Chester Zoo is well on the way to a full recovery after becoming the first of its kind to have sight-saving surgery. A team of eye specialists were called to help four-year-old Munch, a Humboldt penguin, who was experiencing blindness in both of his eyes from cataracts, a disorder which creates cloudy patches on the lens which get bigger overtime. Bird conservationists noticed the issue when Munch was having difficulty catching fish during feeding times and started bumping into other members of the zoo s colony of Humboldt penguins - a species listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as vulnerable to extinction.
Information from the collars can also help reduce tiger-human conflict and improve law enforcement.
Apr 23rd, 2021
Neil Carter, University of Michigan
The GPS collar on this tiger in Nepal’s Parsa National Park will help scientists understand how the tiger behaves near and away from roads.
Neil Carter, CC BY-ND
More than 100,000 tigers ranged across Asia a century ago, from the Indian subcontinent to the Russian Far East. Today they are endangered, with only about 4,000 tigers left in the wild. The greatest threats they face are habitat loss and degradation, illegal hunting and declines in their prey.
Thanks to focused conservation efforts, tiger numbers have rebounded in some parts of their range. In Nepal, for example, the wild tiger population has nearly doubled from 121 in 2009 to 235 in 2018. But a road-building boom in Asia could undo this progress.