To save the left eye of a Sumatran tiger, two veterinarians decided to carry out a very delicate surgical operation, which had never before been performed on big cats.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himRatna is one Sumatran tiger 17-year-old who seriously risked losing an eye. To save him, two veterinarians decided to carry out a very delicate surgical operation, which had never before been performed on big cats. Thanks to their resourcefulness and skill, Ratna is already on the road to recovery.
The tiger, who lives at the Shepreth Wildlife Park, near Cambridge (where she will spend the last years of her existence) had already undergone cataract surgery in 2019. But the staff at the facility later realized that her left eye was deteriorating and that she was suffering from a corneal ulcer. So, the vets decided to operate on her, but the first surgery - performed last February - proved useless and her eye continued to visibly deteriorate.
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All that remained was to attempt an extremely delicate operation that veterinarians had never performed on big cats like tigers. Dr David Williams of the Queen's Veterinary School Hospital at the University of Cambridge and Dr Steve Philp of the International Zoo Veterinary Group succeeded in the enterprise. The surgery lasted 30 minutes.
“There was considerable damage to the cornea that any domestic cat would require intensive eye care, so we decided the best strategy remained to operate to place a conjunctiva graft on the front of the eye,” explains Dr. Williams.
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"I don't think anyone has ever done this before on this species" - explains Dr. Williams, who added that the tiger could no longer see in those conditions and was in severe pain. - "It was a horrendous mess, but the key thing is to have saved the eye itself."
A happy ending story for Ratna. It is a pity, however, that the animal does not live in its natural habitat together with its peers, but in a park with other endangered specimens.
Fonte: Shepreth Wildlife Park
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