Ever wonder what happens if a lion gets a toothache? It’s dental week at Zoo Miami
Even wild animals need to take care of their teeth.
“Just like people, dental health is linked to your overall health,” said Ron Magill, Zoo Miami spokesman.
During the week of Sept. 20, several animals — including a lioness, a meerkat, an otter, orangutans and a tapir — received root canals, extractions or other dental care.
Magill said zoo staff monitors the animals throughout the year for signs of tooth issues, like an animal chewing on one side. Other problems can be found during their regular physicals.
But taking care of such issues is a completely different concept. That’s because not all teeth are created equal, Magill noted.
“The challenge you are dealing with in animal dentistry is that you are dealing with something as tiny as a tooth of a meerkat to as large as a canine of a lioness,” he said.
So the zoo keeps a list of patients for veterinary dentist Dr. Jamie Berning, from Veterinary Dentistry and Oral Surgery of Ohio, who will travel down to spend a week fixing teeth.
Berning, along with her veterinary technician, Jill A. Bates, will be at the zoo through Friday.
David Leisten, from iM3 Imaging Specialists, flew in from Vancouver, Washington, to provide the special imaging equipment needed to finish the work.
Among the patients: Amira, the lioness, needed a root canal. A tapir named Gabriel and a meerkat named Diego both need an extraction.
“Because animals generally do not complain about dental pain, dental disease is often referred to as ‘silent suffering’ in the animal health field,” Magill added. “By the time serious signs such as loss of appetite and weight are evident, the disease or infection process may be quite advanced and can be a debilitating and sometimes fatal issue in animals that do not receive the proper care.”
This story was originally published September 22, 2021 at 7:07 PM.
