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Zoo hopes new beak fixes his social life
Associated Press
Published November 19, 2005
TOKYO - An oriental white stork whose beak snapped off last year after getting stuck in metal wiring got a replacement Friday, a news report said.
Taisa had lost weight since he broke his beak last November because he found it difficult to catch live fish, and no longer got along with his female breeding mate due to stress, keepers at Akita's Omoriyama Zoo told Kyodo News agency.
Dentist Toshiaki Chiba attached a plastic resin prosthetic to the end of Taisa's broken beak using a dental adhesive, according to the report.
The birds are a specially protected species in Japan. The country's last wild oriental white stork died in 1971.
In September, a breeding center in western Japan released five captive-bred birds into the wild in an effort to revive the species.
[Last modified November 19, 2005, 01:08:18]
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