Minnesota’s DULUTH (AP) In a first-of-its-kind bear surgery, an Alaska brown bear at the Lake Superior Zoo in northeastern Minnesota gets a shiny new silver-colored canine tooth.
According to the zoo, the 800-pound (360-kilogram) Tundra was sedated on Monday and given a new crown—the biggest dental crown ever made.
Caroline Routley, the marketing manager at the zoo, stated on Wednesday that he now has a small sparkle in his eyes.
Dr. Grace Brown, a board-certified veterinary dentist who assisted with a root canal on the same tooth two years prior, completed the hour-long treatment. It was decided to give Tundra a new, stronger crown when he reinjured the tooth. A wax cast of Tundra’s teeth was used to make the titanium alloy crown, which was manufactured by Creature Crowns of Post Falls, Idaho.
Later this year, Brown intends to submit a report on the process to the Journal of Veterinary Dentistry.
She said that this was the biggest crown ever made. It must be released.
Following the death of their mother, Tundra and his brother Banks have been at the Duluth zoo since they were three months old.
At six years old, Tundra is around eight feet (2.4 meters) tall when standing on his hind legs. Because of the bear’s enormous size, a member of the zoo’s trained armed response team had to be in the room with a gun close at hand in case the animal woke up during the treatment, according to Routley. However, the process proceeded smoothly, and Tundra is now back in his natural home, acting and eating as usual.
It hasn’t always been the way for other veterinary teams. In 2009, while doing a standard medical examination on a 200-pound (90-kg) Malaysian tiger at Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Omaha, Nebraska, a zoo veterinarian sustained serious damage to his arm.
The veterinarian accidentally brushed the tiger’s whiskers as it was emerging from sedation, leading the tiger to instinctively bite down on the veterinarian’s forearm.
