We share with heavy hearts that one of our 4-month-old white-nosed coati kits, Bailey, was compassionately euthanized due to a severe ongoing medical condition.

Soon after welcoming our eight white-nosed coati kits to their Rainforest Revealed habitat, our animal care team noticed the smallest kit, Bailey, experiencing lethargy and unsteadiness and, eventually, a seizure. Initial bloodwork found that Bailey’s calcium concentrations were low, but her exam and other tests didn’t find any other issues, said Dr. Rachel Turner, one of our two staff veterinarians.

Despite calcium injections and seizure control medication, Bailey continued to have seizures. Bailey was hospitalized in our L3 Harris Animal Care Center with her sister Brandy, who also showed a less severe version of some of Bailey’s symptoms. Bailey was eventually brought to Rockledge Regional Medical Center for an MRI. The MRI was read by a board-certified radiologist, and no significant abnormalities were found. Bloodwork testing for multiple infectious diseases also came back negative.

Bailey and Brandy soon returned to their Rainforest habitat and continued taking seizure medications. While Brandy has shown improvement with the medication, Bailey’s seizures began increasing in severity and duration. With no other diagnostic tools left to give us an answer to what was causing these symptoms in Bailey, we made the difficult and compassionate decision to euthanize. It’s always hard to say goodbye to our animal residents, especially one as young as Bailey, but we knew this decision would protect her from future suffering.

Bailey left a strong impression on her animal care team despite her short time with us.

“Bailey was still a spunky little coati even with all the disadvantages she was going through,” said Assistant Curator of Animals Sidnee Santana-Mellor. “She loved to play with rocks, wrestle in hay and snuggle with her sister Brandy.”

Please keep our Rainforest Revealed animal care team and volunteers in your thoughts.