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Updated: December 30, 2024 @ 5:02 am
Education Reporter
Ian Grenier covers K-12 and higher education in South Carolina from Columbia. Originally from Charleston, he studied history and political science at USC and reported for the Victoria Advocate in South Texas before joining The Post and Courier.
Emmy the baboon on the Riverbanks Zoo operating table in Columbia.
COLUMBIA — Every day is different for the veterinarian team at Riverbanks Zoo.
They have to be. When Dr. Martha Weber, the director of animal health, walks into work each morning, she passes animals ranging from hissing cockroaches to rhinoceros viper snakes to Koshka the tiger, who has arthritis and is one of the oldest tigers in human care.
Weber’s team is responsible for keeping them and the other 3,000-odd animals healthy, in conjunction with the animals’ keepers and outside specialists who back up the zoo’s veterinarians.
Stewie the black-footed cat under anesthesia in the Riverbanks Zoo veterinary facility in Columbia.
That upkeep can mean routine care, like the diabetes drug the vets give Emmy the baboon to manage her insulin resistance, the fluid that Zuri the lion got under his skin to stay hydrated before he died in August or the laser therapy Koshka gets for her arthritis.
But it can also mean more intensive procedures, as it did on one summer morning this year, when both the baboon and Stewie the black-footed cat — one of nature’s cutest yet deadliest felines — were on the table in the zoo’s veterinary facility.
After some x-rays, specialists Dr. Tristan Weinkle and Dr. Corrine Goldman guided a tiny camera on the end of a fiber optic tube down Stewie’s throat, using it to see the cat’s intestinal walls on a monitor over the table. After the team got a clear image, another thin wire followed, which they used to pinch off tissue samples from the intestine.
Dr. Corinne Goldman looks at the intestine of a black-footed cat during a procedure at Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia.
The veterinarians suspected some sort of inflammatory bowel disease — keepers had reported that Stewie hadn’t been eating — so they sent the samples off to the University of Georgia’s veterinary school for a biopsy.
Stewie would be awake again within 15 minutes, and Emmy, whose procedure earlier in the morning revealed that she didn’t have a mass in her bladder, was already walking again.
With such a variety of animals to care for, the veterinarians have to “extrapolate,” drawing connections between the domestic animals they first learned about in veterinary school to the more exotic ones in the zoo.
Sea lions are like dogs who can hold their breath for a long time, Weber said. Zebras and rhinos are similar to horses. Giraffes are like cows with really long necks.
With some animals, particularly apes, humans are the best comparison, so the zoo calls in human doctors to help.
Stewie the black-footed cat under anesthesia in the Riverbanks Zoo’s veterinary facility in Columbia.
A whole team of human OB/GYNs were on call when the zoo’s gorillas were pregnant, coming in to look at the ultrasounds and standing ready to perform a cesarean section if necessary. Human cardiologists also help with ape heart issues.
“Once you get them over the hump of ‘Well, it’s not a human,’ it’s almost exactly the same,” Weber said.
Beyond the comparisons, the team relies on knowledge they’ve picked up in internships and residency training at zoos, and consult journal articles and other zoos with the same animals.
Riverbanks Zoo staff put socks on Emmy the baboon to keep her warm while she was anesthesia in the zoo’s veterinary facility.
Veterinarians here see different types of problems than traditional vets, Weber said. Cat veterinarians often deal with diabetic patients, for instance, while Emmy is only the third diabetic animal Weber has treated in three decades — forcing her to think back to her training to translate treatments on cats to the zoo’s baboon.
The specialists the zoo brings in are key, and they can get specific: Riverbanks’ giraffe feet are serviced by a Colorado-based giraffe farrier who travels across the country to different zoos.
But regardless of the veterinarians’ and handlers’ expertise, zoo animals sometimes die, such as 20-year-old Zuri the lion in August, or 14-year-old Isabelle the giraffe in March.
A euthanization is a “hard decision,” Weber said. It’s made by the veterinarians, keepers and curators based on what is in the animal’s best interest.
Dr. Corrine Goldman and Dr. Tristan Weinkle look at a monitor as they perform an endoscopy on a black-footed cat at Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia. Dr. Martha Weber, the zoo’s head veterinarian, watches from the back.
After a death, the zoo’s staff has an arrangement with UGA’s veterinary school to send some animals there for a postmortem exam, to understand the cause. Isabelle, for instance, had a disease in her vertebrae, so her skeleton is going to be preserved as a teaching tool.
“We always want to learn and see if there’s anything we can do in the future to prevent an issue,” Weber said.
Reach Ian Grenier at 803-968-1951. Follow him on X @IanGrenier1.
Education Reporter
Ian Grenier covers K-12 and higher education in South Carolina from Columbia. Originally from Charleston, he studied history and political science at USC and reported for the Victoria Advocate in South Texas before joining The Post and Courier.
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