Visitors to a New Jersey zoo get to watch veterinarians treat the animals

WEST ORANGE, N.J. – Forget the giraffes, gibbons and leopards. About a dozen visitors at the Turtle Back Zoo gathered one recent morning around the most unusual sight of all.

It was a small, light-brown tortoise getting a veterinary checkup.

Over the next half-hour, spectators watched through a plate-glass window as the young sulcata tortoise – an endangered species also known as the African spurred tortoise – underwent measurements, X-rays, a blood draw, microchipping and more.

Inside the northern New Jersey zoo’s spacious new, publicly visible treatment room, Dr. Kailey Anderson tucked the gel-covered wand of a Doppler machine between the top and bottom of the tortoise’s shell to listen to its heart.

The nonplussed reptile pulled its head and thick-scaled front legs around the wand,