Sick Koala Put to Sleep at Zoo

A 6-year-old female koala housed at the San Diego Zoo was euthanized after veterinarians discovered that cancer diagnosed last year had spread throughout the animal’s body, zoo officials said.

The koala, named Kembla, was euthanized Saturday. Zoo officials said that preliminary results of a necropsy performed on the tree-dwelling marsupial showed that she had several tumors in her spleen and a growing tumor mass in her head.

Kembla had had her left arm and shoulder amputated in July because of cancer. Six months after that operation, veterinarians discovered another tumor near her right eye. Although the tumor was partly removed, it continued to grow, zoo officials said.

“All of us were saddened by her death because she really put up a fight,” zoo spokeswoman Georgeanne Irvine said. “We had all grown attached to her.”

On Friday, Kembla’s keeper noticed slight bleeding from the koala’s nose. Zoo officials placed the animal on medical watch, but Saturday Kembla’s keeper found her nearly unconscious.

Zoo officials said veterinarians had no choice but to euthanize the suffering animal. Kembla was having severe internal hemorrhaging, the zoo said.

Veterinarians said the cancer in the koala’s arm and near her eye were considered bone cancer, a fairly common disease in both captive and wild koalas. Tests were being run to determine the kind of cancer that infected Kembla’s spleen, Irvine said.

Kembla’s 8 1/2-month old baby, Killara, was given a surrogate mother koala, 13-year-old Katja. Killara is being weaned to eat eucalyptus leaves.