Maria Daines
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10/27/2006 10:24:15 AM
Animals Asia Foundation bear rescues, update 2, please read this....
Dear Friends,
In the past 2 days I have received further news of the 12 recently rescued bears. I am afraid to say that although the email from Jill below starts relatively positive the news is as bad as it could be for 2 of the poor bears. Fingers crossed for the other 10 pulling through over the next few days and weeks.
I will leave you to read the story directly from Jill.
Best Wishes,
Dave
Jill wrote on 25/10/06
Dear everyone,..... what a day. Our hearts were in mouths when Gail and team anaesthetised the first skinny little girl at 9am, knowing that we were looking at an animal with all the odds stacked against her. With the bear laid out on the surgery table our girl rapidly turned into a boy in front of our eyes and the room was silent as we looked at his
skeletal, battered body. Just 61kgs in weight, with his back leg missing from a snare or leghold trap, another snare wound running right around his neck, ribs and hips jutting out, withered limbs, paw pads that looked strangely flattened from lack of fat or fluid and a body so badly dehydrated that the skin stubbornly refused to lay flat when pinched by Gail. This bear was a mess.
However, Hayley, one of our vet nurses, had a dream that he would beat the odds and still be alive one hour into the health check - and so it was.... and he was too. The ultrasound examination of S206 revealed an array of gallstones but nothing else of major concern, except that this badly malnourished and dehydrated bear could still "crash" at any time from a variety of related problems. We guess that, as often happens, because his free drip wound had healed, he had proved useless on the farm and the farmer had simply stopped feeding him, leaving him to starve to death.
Little Twiglet (just an affectionate nickname for now until we're sure he'll pull through) woke up, lying on straw in a roomy cage, with Bev hand feeding him and catering to his every whim. He still isn't out of the woods by a long way, clearly has some sort of infection raging inside, but despite our initial fears is fighting the odds and is a lot happier than he was yesterday.
A quick but thorough scrub of the surgery and this afternoon it was bear number S207's turn. A bear with the hugest most distended abdomen we had ever seen, and a foul, foul smell leading some of us to think that he had that most dreaded and incurable of disease -peritonitis. Weighing in at a healthy 167.5 kgs but looking and smelling distinctly unhealthy Boss, as he was nicknamed, was laid out on to the surgery table with bloated abdomen proudly pointed to the ceiling. Again, an ultrasound examination showed nothing conclusive but fluid was drawn from his abdomen into a syringe and the decision was made to go in. Several hours later, with all organs apparently healthy and looking ok, Boss and his big belly was also tenderly settled into a recovery cage and being prepared for some heavy pampering over the next few days.
This is not the outcome we'd expected at all and it's honestly a relief not to end this day with red eyes and puffy faces as we'd thought would be the case. We still have another bear with a free drip hole leaking bile and oozing stomach contents - and a major surgery planned for the morning. But she, and the other bears remaining have good appetites and are filling their bony bodies with food as fast as Bev and the volunteer nurses can feed them………..
The saddest PS......................... I was just about to hit "send" when Bev came over the walkie talkie saying that she thought Twiglet was dying. Gail and I went over to hear Bev saying that he had become agitated a few moments before and had begun rattling his food bowl as if calling for help. When she went in he was gasping for breath
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