Dental Team Relieves Animal Toothaches
A week ago I was asked by the Fresno Chaffee Zoo to come document the work of doctors from the Peter Emily International Veterinary Dental Foundation. The team of four travels the world on their weekends away from their regular jobs to volunteer their skills to help captive exotic animals.
Dr. Barron Hall, Dr. Charles Dyer and their team came to the Fresno zoo to help with dental work on one of the sloth bears and Kiki, one of the zoo's female lions (and mother to Kijani, the young lion cub). The sloth bear needed a root canal done and Kiki needed two!
Below are photos from both procedures done last weekend. It was fascinating to watch the team work so well together. Zoo veterinary team members, curators and mammal keepers all assisted in the procedures as well as performing some other preventative care.
Additionally, the doctors did dental work on one of Project Survival's Cat Haven jaguars. After that, they were back to their regular jobs. Pretty amazing weekend for these guys.
The photographs I shot for the zoo may be used in their newsletter as well as on their Facebook page. I also shot some video, which I think they may publish too.