Female koala Merinda dies at Ocean Park after kidney failure
Hong Kong theme park announces it put the three-year-old to sleep for the incurable disease commonly seen in the species
Three-year-old female southern koala Merinda at Ocean Park was put to sleep Monday morning due to kidney failure brought on by oxalate nephrosis, it was announced.
A park spokeswoman said the koala had been under intensive care since April for the incurable disease commonly seen in the species and that euthanasia was recommended by Dr Ian Hough, a veterinarian from Cleland Wildlife Park in South Australia, where the marsupial was born.
Merinda arrived at Ocean Park from the wildlife park with two other individuals of the same species – male Dougie and female Yani – in October 2014. She was put on display at the park’s Adventures in Australia feature in March last year.
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Merinda was asymptomatic at the time of her arrival. After about a month, however, she was found to have calcium oxalate crystals in her urine samples, a symptom indicative of oxalate nephrosis. She was then put in intensive care and medication treatments, the spokeswoman said.
But Merinda failed to respond to treatment and her health deteriorated, according to Ocean Park’s executive director of zoological operations and education Suzanne Gendron.
The vet team concluded that ongoing treatment would not be consistent with maintaining positive animal welfare and that the most humane option was euthanasia after reviewing all options.
Hough said oxalate nephrosis was a common disease among the koala population in South Australia and had been observed in koalas as young as less than two years of age.