Team of vet nurses needed to lift 175kg lion onto operating table

Australian Community Media

Eight-year-old Zuberi needed a pulp capping to fix a chipped fang. The broken tooth was discovered during a training session, and was likely chipped while Zuberi chomped on a bone. Video voice-over made using ACM-approved AI.

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00:00A team of 10 vet nurses were needed to lift a 175-kilogram lion onto an operating table at Melbourne Zoo.

00:08So for most of our animals here, and especially for our dangerous ones,

00:11they are trained to have a hand injection for their anesthesia.

00:14So when we do a procedure like this, he has to be anesthetized, as you can imagine.

00:18So yeah, the keepers gave him an injection, and he had a nice little snooze.

00:25While vets got in there, we moved him up to the veterinary hospital,

00:28and were able to fix his tooth and bring him back on the same day.

00:32Eight-year-old Zuberi needed a pulp capping to fix a chipped fang.

00:35The broken tooth was discovered during a training session,

00:38and was likely chipped while Zuberi chomped on a bone.

00:42The 10-centimetre-long tooth took 30 minutes to cap while the animal was sedated.

00:47Well, the lion's teeth are huge, so they're about 10 times the size of your domestic cat.

00:52So like a centimetre versus 10 centimetres, like massively different.

00:56And then we often do a lot of meerkat teeth as well, and they're only millimetres high.

01:02So yeah, the lion's teeth are just crazily big.

01:05It's a privilege really to get so close to them, I guess,

01:07because you never get close to them in the wild.

01:10So it's really exciting in that regard.

01:13The dentistry is fantastic because it's bigger, so it's actually easier,

01:17because everything's larger.

01:18And compared to, say, 20 years ago, or when I was starting off doing the dentistry,

01:24we've got tools now and instruments that make life so much easier.

01:27So it's a fast procedure.

01:28Like pulp capping takes about 30 minutes.

01:31And if we did like a domestic cat in the clinic, it'd still take 30 minutes.

01:34So, but just being so close, like just to be so close to a lion is, it's just, you know,

01:40it's one of those lifetime experiences that you'd probably never have if you didn't have the job I had.

01:44You may have seen that he was wearing some little mittens or kind of booties on his feet, on his paws.

01:50Our volunteers actually knit those for them, and it just helps to keep them warm throughout the procedure.

01:54And it's also really cute, of course.

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