6-Month-Old Penguin Chick Dies at Point Defiance Zoo
Summary:
Tacoma, WA – Tacoma’s Point Defiance Zoo (PDZ) announced that one of its penguin chicks died after a number of health complications. Periwinkle was six months old. He and his brother, Lavender, were the first two penguin chicks to successfully hatch from their parents and were the first penguins to be artificially incubated at PDZ.
The zoo said Periwinkle dealt with significant challenges from the day he was born, including being underweight at birth and struggling with a severe umbilical infection. He was hand-raised due to these early issues, and eventually had to have two surgeries to repair torn ligaments in his right leg. During recent health exams, PDZ’s veterinary team diagnosed Periwinkle with aspergillosis, a fungal infection, along with discovering more problems in his right leg. When additional complications were found in the left leg, and the zoo said that the surgical repair had a low chance of a positive outcome, PDZ says the decision was then made to euthanize Periwinkle.
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