How do you X-ray a 250kg tortoise?

How do you X-ray a 250kg tortoise? You’re about to find out!

In March of this year our ectotherm keepers noticed that our 47-year young Galápagos tortoise Willy had been limping slightly on one of his front legs.

They contacted our skilled vet team at the Auckland Zoo Vet Hospital and developed an ingenious solution – a custom built tortoise hoist!

As Lydia says, improvements can be slow with a tortoise of this size, “one of the challenges of looking after these tortoises is that they do everything really slowly. So they eat slowly, they move around quite slowly and they also heal really slowly” so our vets and keepers will continue to monitor Willy closely as well as providing him with the care he needs while he is healing.

Want to know more about our amazing vet team and the exciting work they do at our zoo and around the country? You can visit our Vet Hospital page to see our latest videos, vet team profiles and research.