At long last, the BC Wildlife Park in Kamloops has its new x-ray machine.

General Manager Glenn Grant says the $45,000 machine will be well used as the park gets over 500 animals brought in each year.

“The best thing about this machine is that it’s portable,” he told NL News.

“We’ve got some larger animals in our collection that obviously we can’t bring into the clinic to have an x-ray so this machine is portable that we can take it out into the field, and take those x-rays there almost instantly as opposed to trying to bring one in or borrow on or figure out how we are going to transport an animal to get an x-ray.”

Grant says staff have already used the machine for a couple of days, adding the first animal to get an x-ray was a snake. He says they’ve also x-rayed an eagle wing as well.

“It’s a digital plate the size of a laptop and you can move that plate, so that if it’s under a hoof or under a hip or under a jaw for example,” Grant added. “You can take multiple x-rays with this digital plate. That’s the great thing about it.”

He says staff at the park are grateful for the numerous donations that were made, that helped them get to their goal of owning an x-ray machine.

“We’ve had great support from the veterinary clinics in town but this machine is going to get a heck of a lot of use. It’s going to be well worth it that’s for sure.”