Everyone can use a little change. A Nebraska zoo completed surgery on its white alligator to remove $7 worth of loose change that ended up in his stomach.
The Nery Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, posted on Facebook that the leucistic American alligator, named Thibodaux, had originally had blood collection and radiographs done as part of routine care. When veterinarians looked at the tests, they spotted objects in the gator’s stomach that turned out to be coins.
“With the help of his training, Thibodaux was anesthetized and intubated to allow us to safely manage him during the procedure,” Christina Ploog, an associate veterinarian at the zoo, said. “A plastic pipe was placed to protect his mouth and safely pass the tools used to access the coins, such as a camera that helped us guide the retrieval of these objects.”
The veterinarians ended up removing 70 coins from the 36-year-old’s stomach. That’s worth around $7 in change.
A follow-up X-ray also confirmed that the alligator’s stomach was now free of coins. “Guests should not throw coins into any bodies of water at the zoo,” the Facebook post said. “Any loose change can instead be turned in for a souvenir coin in one of the several machines around the zoo or in our coin wishing well located in the atrium of the Desert Dome.”
Source: https://www.facebook.com/OmahaZoo/posts/792972859539379