Lion Sneaks a CAT NAP During CAT Scan for an Earache

Incredible Tails

Credit: SWNS / ZSL  This lion looks as if it's sneaking a little cat nap as it undergoes a CAT scan for earache at London Zoo.  The 12 year old endangered Asiatic lion, called Bhanu, was suffering recurrent ear infections in his left ear.  So the team of vets at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) brought the scanner to the zoo to investigate.

Transcript

00:00 (percussive music)

00:02 Banu, our male Asiatic lion, came to us a few years ago

00:08 with a history of some ear problems

00:10 when he was a younger animal.

00:11 And over time here, we could see his ear was uncomfortable.

00:13 So a few times we've got hands on, under anesthetic,

00:16 had a look at the ear, had some specialists come in,

00:19 and we could see that we couldn't get very deep

00:21 into that ear compared to the other ear.

00:23 But even the other ear, they're such very big ears

00:26 with no instruments designed to go in there

00:29 that it was very difficult to appreciate what was going on

00:31 and to really get to the bottom of it all

00:33 and also to check that he had no middle ear disease,

00:35 which is an area you can't actually see,

00:37 we needed to have a better look using a CAT scan.

00:40 So we got a CAT scan for our big cats.

00:42 And we did this by getting a truck

00:44 with a CT scanner on board so that we could safely move Banu

00:47 just from his den into the CAT scan and back to his den,

00:50 which was safe and comfortable for everybody

00:52 rather than moving him far away.

00:54 These procedures are always very much collaborative.

00:57 We want the best for the animals,

00:58 so we get all the specialists on board.

00:59 We had a specialist to have a look,

01:01 help us look at the ear itself

01:02 from the Royal Veterinary College,

01:04 a specialist dermatologist.

01:05 And then while we were actually CT scanning alive,

01:08 we had a specialist in Australia

01:09 having a look at the scans for us

01:10 to decide whether we had anything

01:12 we had to worry about further.

01:13 We were very relieved to know that both sides

01:16 were very symmetrical in terms of the middle ear,

01:18 so no tumors and no disease there,

01:21 but that his left ear canal was very narrow

01:23 compared to the right.

01:24 And this is no doubt why we keep getting infections there.

01:28 We're probably getting a little bit of moisture

01:29 trapped in there,

01:30 which in the other ear just clears itself,

01:31 and with Banu leads to sort of a little bit of

01:33 an environment where bacteria and yeasts can thrive.

01:36 Moving forward, we now know that there's nothing

01:38 seriously wrong with Banu's ears,

01:39 except for an outer ear infection,

01:41 which we'd love to treat with just, you know,

01:43 drops and a massage, but we can't do that.

01:45 So we're going to be giving him some oral medication

01:48 to reduce the inflammation in that ear.

01:50 Also a little bit of medication

01:51 to reduce infection in the ear,

01:53 and that should hopefully keep things under control.

01:55 We will also be doing regular health checks,

01:57 so next time he has his health check,

01:58 we'll be just checking that ear,

02:00 giving it a bit of a flush and a clean if we need to.

02:02 And going forward, we know that we can keep things

02:04 under control and Banu should be comfortable.

02:06 (upbeat music)

02:08 (upbeat music)

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