Leo Gets His Surgery

On the first weekend of February 2007, Dra. Ivonne Cassiagne of Mexico City returned to Santiago. This time she brought with her Dr. Ole Alcumbrac who is the consulting veterinarian for the Arizona Game & Fish Department, and the US Fish & Wildlife Service. The project was to operate on what appeared to be a bone sticking out of Leo's paw. It has been there for over 3 years.

They were assisted by Cabo San Lucas vets, Dr. Andres Yeechig and Dra. Samantha Acosta. (a husband & wife team). A close-up picture of the protruding bone is in a previous post, but here is another one to show the location…which will be interesting when you learn what the doctors found. I took this picture last August.

The first job was to get Leo on the table…it took several people to lift him with a tarp. The whole operation was captured on video by Dr. Ole's assistant. I hope to obtain a copy of it and if I do, I will post it if possible.

Once they got him on the table they took x-rays. Here Dr. Yeechig is holding the x-ray plate under Leo's paw, while Dr. Ole is holding some other piece of equipment. They were assisted by two young vet interns.
The x-rays showed an unbelievable condition. All this time we thought it was a broken bone that was protruding out…even though there was no known event that caused the injury…it had just appeared.

X-rays showed that it was a malformed claw! Leo had been the victim of a botched declawing procedure, most likely when he was a cub.

Declawing exotic cats is now illegal in the United States....the law was just passed recently. When done improperly, growth tissue is left behind causing claws to grow in aberrant directions. This one had curled under and over the years had grown up & out. They fixed it as best they could since the original surgery was substandard. His other paws were OK.

Ironically, there were many people in the chain of contacts that led us to Dr. Ivonne. One person in that chain was Dr. Jennie Conrad, of Paw Project. Dr. Conrad was one the of main advocates that lobbied to outlaw declaw surgery on large cats. She had cared for a large group of tiger cubs that were confiscated and temporarily housed at the Fund For Animals' Wildlife Rehabilitation facility near my home. I talked to them when I was looking for resources to help Leo. This incident with Leo illustrates so clearly why this type of procedure needed to be outlawed.

Leo also got his teeth cleaned by Dra. Samantha Acosta, aided by an intern.

Leo wasn't the only lion to get a check up. The cubs were examined and blood taken for tests. Here is Dr. Ivonne with a young male cub that was brought in with two of his siblings three months ago.

It has been four weeks since the surgery and Leo is healing nicely. He is still on antibiotics to ward off infection.

Dr. Ivonne has reported back that the blood tests were all normal, on the cubs as well as Leo. But a test for Feline TB has yet to come back. This is a standard test they do, expecially when new cats enter the facility. They do not suspect them to be infected...BUT if any of them show up positive...and it is confirmed, the infected one will be put down and the others will be in peril. TB is very contagious.

Our next project is to push for the establishment of a foundation so we can start fundraising to build larger enclosures. For the first time in 5 years, that seems to be a very REAL possibility!

That all for now! Thank you for checking in.