The vulture’s beak was transplanted to South Africa

In South Africa, the University of Pretoria performed a unique operation to transplant a beak from a dead donor into a vulture. On Saturday, June 10, the Bild newspaper reports.

The report says the bird was the victim of an accident. After being hit by a car, he lost an eye and a large part of his beak. For him, this meant death, because he could not eat alone.

Witnesses of the incident took the bird to the veterinary faculty of the university, where they decided to help him.

“At first they tried to attach an artificial beak to the vulture, but twice such an attempt ended in failure. Then the doctor Katya Keppel had another idea – to use the beak of a dead vulture , which is stored at the university in a freezer for several hours,” the journalists said.

The operation took half an hour. The beak of a dead bird is attached with six screws to the beak of a wounded vulture.

“A month has passed since the operation, the bird is eating with a new beak,” the doctors said.

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They hope that in a few years the vulture will grow a new beak, after which the prosthesis can be removed.

However, they do not plan to release the bird into the wild. Because it has one eye, it would be difficult for it to survive in the wild, experts say. They plan to keep the vulture under their supervision. However, they are now thinking about finding a partner so that the couple can have a child. Little vultures will be released into the forest.