A bear is set to become the first animal of its kind in the UK to undergo pioneering brain surgery after developing a life-threatening condition.
Boki is an 18-stone brown bear who lives at Wildwood in Kent.
The animal has been suffering from seizures and other related health issues as of late.
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A recent MRI revealed that the two-year-old mammal has hydrocephalus, a neurological condition that causes spinal fluid builds up in the brain.
Specialist wildlife veterinary surgeon, Romain Pizzi, has agreed to operate on Boki in coming weeks.
The doctor has performed a similar operation on a black bear in Asia in the past.
“Boki’s welfare has always been at the forefront of every path we’ve chosen since he came to us two years ago,” Mark Habben, director of Zoo Operation, told Need To Know.
“We’d hoped his condition could be managed through medication but it became evident that it was no longer giving the relief to the seizures that we had initially seen.
“After consulting with medical experts and considering at length the ethics of this surgery we believe wholeheartedly this is the best chance of providing a healthy and enriched life for Boki.
“And there’s no one better than Romain to perform this operation – an absolute leader in his field and one of the most innovative wildlife surgeons in the world.”
During the key-hole surgery, Boki will be fitted with a stent or shunt that will drain the fluid accumulating in his brain into his abdomen before he passes it.
It is hoped that this will be a one-off procedure as the length of the stent is dependent on the bear’s overall length.
While Boki will gain weight in the future, the team is confident that his overall body length will not change significantly.
Wildwood adopted Boki from Port Lympne Safari Park nearly two years ago after he was rejected by their brown bear family.
He had been hand-reared by keepers there and has had to learn how to behave like a bear under the guidance of his new family in Herne Bay.
He lives just next door to the park’s ever-popular adult male bears Fluff and Scruff.
The trust received worldwide acclaim for its rehabilitation of the duo, who were rescued in Bulgaria nearly 10 years ago.
With the help of Wildwood’s expert keepers, Fluff and Scruff are now showing natural behaviours such as foraging and undergoing torpor after suffering years of physical and mental trauma when they were held in an abandoned breeding facility under horrific conditions to be shot for ‘sport’.
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