Picture an operation theatre. A team of dental surgeons is performing a root canal surgery. An air of nervousness hangs above them. They finally emerge in triumph from the operation theatre, exchanging congratulatory high-fives and relieved smiles. All this, some readers might wonder, for something as mundane as a root canal surgery? But this was no standard dental procedure. This team of intrepid doctors from Bangalore had just operated upon, believe it or not, a rather ill-tempered tigress. After the six-hour surgery that entailed the extraction of her canine, the patient, Menaka, resident of the Bannerghatta National Park — and the team of doctors — were both fine.
Soon, the once ill-tempered animal was purring again — a far cry from the last eight months when a suppurating wound on her face had been troubling her so much that she was snapping at everyone who dared venture close to her. “The doctors were treating her wound, without realising that the problem lay not in the face, but inside the jaw. She had a severe infection in the root canal of her canine, which needed immediate treatment,” recounted Dr A Sha Arun, senior wildlife veterinary officer, at the wildlife conservation NGO, Wildlife SOS. But such a surgery had never been done in India, especially not under general anaesthesia. But how could anyone operate on an angry big cat unless she was totally knocked out?
“I was nervous,” said Arun, “putting a tiger under anaesthesia was quite unheard of in India. In fact, most vets erroneously believe that general anaesthesia can actually kill the animal.” The situation was difficult — too much could kill the patient, but too little could endanger the doctors. “After all, my hand would be inside her jaw at the time!” he quipped. Further, they needed an operating table with strong harnesses to hold the patient in case she woke up.
Arun and his team of two anesthesiologists had performed surgeries on sloth bears and leopards at the Wildlife SOS rescue centres, and were confident that they could pull this tricky operation off. “The key, I realised, lay in the amount of anaesthesia we gave to the animal. Too much, and its life would have been in danger. Too little, and our lives would’ve been on the line,” he recounted.
As soon as they anaesthetised the tigress, they quickly took an X-ray of her jaw. “We found, as we’d suspected all along, that there was a clear case for extraction of her canine,” he said. The actual procedure was similar to what many of us may have gone through. But while human cavities measure about seven-nine mm, tigers could have cavities that are almost ten times larger. So what takes an hour or so for a human, took six hours for the tigress.
“Tigers in the wild kill their prey and chew through fur, gristle and bones. This keeps their teeth clean. In captivity, they get dressed meat to eat, and this makes them prone to cavities,” he said. It’s when their canines (or trademark fangs) get affected that their very survival is threatened. Not only can the afflicted tiger no longer tear meat, the infection in the root canal may spread fatally to its brain.
It’s been two years since their first root canal surgery, and Arun and his team have successfully operated on three more tigers. Last month, Arun addressed a dental congress in Bangalore, and inspired over 100 dentists to volunteer work with wild animals to help them keep their fangs shipshape. He said: “There is a raging debate across the country about tiger conservation and I feel incredibly proud that I’m doing my bit for them!”