It seems like the setup to a joke: how do you perform leg surgery on a southern white rhinoceros’ leg? The truth is the same as the likely punchline: very carefully.
That was the case for Amara, a two-year-old rhino living in an English zoo, who underwent an unprecedented surgery to repair her broken leg. It’s the second piece of good rhino news this week, following the sighting of a newborrn Javan rhino, the most endangered rhino species in the world.
Animal keepers at Knowsley Safari first noticed Amara’s limp earlier this year. According to a University of Liverpool statement announcing the successful operation, Amara is known for her “boisterous play,” and often spars with her fellow rhinos—behavior which is typical for her kind, though it’s not clear if that’s how she suffered her injury. Initially, zoo keepers tried to treat Amara’s injury with rest and pain relief, but when there was no improvement, they called on veterinary specialists from the University of Liverpool to help diagnose what could be wrong. The ensuing x-rays showed Amara had suffered a broken ulna in her right front leg.
According to a statement from the university, this was an unprecedented situation, with no other recorded cases of a rhino suffering this kind of injury, let alone being treated for it. The university vets were also not rhino specialists; rather, they were equine surgeons. Despite there being some small differences between horses and rhinos (rhino dressage, for instance, is not an Olympic event… yet), the decision was made to operate.
The five hour laparoscopic surgery took over 10 veterinarians to pull off. The specialists involved included surgeons and anesthetists, the latter of whom certainly earned their pay on that day. One can only imagine how much tranquilizer it takes to put a rhino under, or what happens if a very angry ungulate wakes up while still under the knife. Female white rhinos can grow to over 3,700 pounds (1,700 kilograms), though at two years old, Amara is still a few years from reaching her full size, and tips the scales at “just” 1,760 pounds (800 kilograms).
“Amara’s operation is unlike anything we’ve experienced previously,” said David Stack, a senior lecturer in equine surgery at the university. “We knew we could position the camera inside her joint, but due to the unprecedented nature of the procedure, we didn’t know how much room we would have to operate, or how much of the affected area we would be able to see.”
In a statement, the zoo reported that, following the procedure, Amara was fitted with a cast and was put in an enclosure with her mother, Meru. She was also given shots of platelet-rich plasma made from her own blood, a treatment that can facilitate healing.
“We were unsure if the cast would be strong enough and how Amara would cope with such a restriction on her limb,” said Stack. “We hoped that she would accept it and that she would be able to move around, get down and, importantly, back up again but this was unchartered water.”
After 27 weeks, the cast was removed, and Amara rejoined the other rhinos. Though the zoo staff are still monitoring her, so far, Amara appears to be doing well.
The vets noted that they had thoroughly documented the procedures they used on Amara, in case a similar situation ever arises again. Given that there are only 18,000 white rhinos in the world, we can only hope that future rhino patients comply with doctors’ orders, and that no weird rhino surgery truthers start popping up.
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