Kiwi with Wooden Leg to be Given a Home After Being in a Trap

Grey River Argus, 21 September 1948, Page 6

Kiwi with Wooden Leg to be Given a Home After Being in a Trap

P.A. NEW PLYMOUTH, Sept. 20. Fitted with a wooden leg, a kiwi that had lost a leg through being caught in an opossum trap at Koru, about three months ago, was despatched by the National Airways Corporation plane from New Plymouth to-day. It was consigned by the Taranaki Acclimatisation Society to the East Coast Acclimatisation Society, to be given a home at that Society’s game farm at Greenmeadows, near Napier. The kiwi, after being caught, was taken to Mr. J. H. MacDonald, veterinary surgeon, at Okato,. who, after attempting to save the injured leg by placing it in plaster, eventually was compelled to amputate it, and to replace it with a wooden leg. During its period of captivity the kiwi became very tame, and in the last few days, when it was at the home of the secretary of the Taranaki Society, Mr. R. J. D. Mason, New Plymouth, it was like a domestic pet. It spent most of its time on the lawns digging for. worms.