Eye of the tiger ... healthy precautions as big cat is given his annual check-up
FEW PEOPLE ever willingly get so close to the jaws of a Sumatran tiger.
And fewer still live to tell the tale.
But these medics are giving this impressive big cat a once over as part of a regular checkup.
It is a 20- month- old Sumatran Tiger Pemanah, pictured during a health check at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia.
Pemanah, whose name means Archer in Indonesian, is subjected to a health check once a year by Taronga Wildlife Hospital staff.
It is a chance to assess the health of the animals by checking overall body condition.
In order for the check to take place, Pemanah’s regular keepers trained him to come to a station and voluntarily
accept an injection through mesh to administer the initial anesthetic.
Once vets assess that the animal is safely under anaesthetic, he is temporarily restrained using a net before
being transferred to a table for the health check.
An ankle restraint is also used on the tiger as an additional safety measure. As part of the procedure, Pemanah was given a hormone implant to help manage breeding as well as having his teeth, eyes and ears checked, blood tests taken in addition to an overall examination.
After the procedure, Pemanah was transferred to a heated pile of hay to recover before being given a reversal injection to bring him out from under anaesthetic.
Taronga Zoo was allocated £ 20.6m as part of the New South Wales state budget to build new, state- of- the- art wildlife hospitals in Sydney and Dubbo.
The remaining £ 19.7m to complete the project will be sought from philanthropic and private donors.
In 1994, the Indonesian Sumatran Tiger Conservation Strategy addressed the crisis that tigers faced. The Sumatran Tiger Project ( STP) was initiated in June 1995 in and around the Way Kambas National Park to ensure their long- term viability.