A 6-year-old Chilean pink flamingo at the Sorocaba Zoo in Brazil got an artificial leg to stand on after the bottom portion of the bird's leg was fractured and had to be amputated to prevent an infection, The Guardian reported.
"To prevent an infection from setting in and spreading to the rest of his body, which would have killed him, we decided to amputate the leg and give him the prosthesis," said the zoo's veterinarian, Andre Costa, who performed the surgery on the flamingo, which is the first to receive a prosthetic leg, according to Huffington Post.
The cause of the bird's injury is unknown, but Costa said that "perhaps one of the clumsy pelicans that share the enclosure crashed into him or he was attacked by one of the crowned cranes, who are very aggressive and territorial."
The bird has little chance of survival with one leg, so the zoo decided to try the artificial leg using a 7-inch carbon limb that was donated by a local prosthesis manufacturer.
After the surgery, the flamingo was adjusting to his new leg but remains isolaed from the other 28 flamingos in the zoo.
"The other birds might see the prosthesis as an object to be attacked, not as a leg," Costa said. "They may shun or attack, and even kill him."
