Lucky's road to recovery

It’s been a long road to recovery for Lucky the Koala. He presented to Taronga Western Plains Zoo’s Wildlife Hospital over nine months ago with a broken leg. He was brought to the Zoo from the Blayney area by a WIRES carer after he was taken to a local vet.

Veterinary assessment and x-rays showed the fracture was through the growth plate near his knee, which posed a complication to the normal healing process due to the fact that Lucky was a young, growing animal.

Lucky underwent specialist surgery to repair his broken leg and was then monitored closely by the veterinary team at the Zoo. As he slowly started to heal he was moved to a larger enclosure at the Wildlife Hospital to provide the opportunity for him to climb so that he could develop strength back in the injured leg.

Lucky had multiple rechecks and x-rays throughout the course of the nine months whilst in care at the Wildlife Hospital to monitor the healing process. Whilst the fracture took much longer to heal than anticipated, the Zoo's vets and specialists’ surgeons involved in the case were finally please with how the bones look on x-ray and how the leg is functioning.

Recently Lucky was discharged and transferred to a licenced central west koala rehabilitation facility for pre-release assessment. The Zoo’s veterinary team are so happy to see Lucky move on to the next phase of his recovery and one step closer to life back in the wild.

Lucky the Koala is just one of over 600 wildlife cases that presented to the Zoo’s Wildlife Hospital over the past year and was one of the longest rehabilitation cases. It is great to see Lucky continue his recovery and hopefully be back in the wild in the future.