How the vets at the Detroit Zoo care for thousands of animals

Ajouté : 2026-04-29

[00:00:04]Zoo medicine tends to be a little bit of a competitive field because it is it is very cool. I won't lie about that. It's our our jobs are awesome.

[00:00:12]>> Some of these animals I've worked with the entire 31 years that I've been here and that definitely developed relationships with them. We practice veterinary medicine at a very high level.

[00:00:25]>> She got a little beak lip. Oh, Manny Petty. I love my job because every single day is different.

[00:00:33]>> I'm Maurice Anderson >> and I'm Randy Hamilton. Welcome to Detroit Zoo >> inside and out.

[00:00:42]>> When people think of the zoo, they often think of the big animals like lions, tigers, polar bears, but there are more than 2,000 animals that live at the Detroit Zoo. And every one of them needs specialized expert care.

[00:00:56]>> That's right. Speaking of specialized care, Machindi wasn't feeling well. So, our zookeepers, uh, they noticed that and they made sure that he got the dental care and the hip surgery that he needed to get back on his feet.

[00:01:06]>> And we get an opportunity to see how amazing the vet team is in making all of that happen.

[00:01:13]>> Hello, I'm Dr. Anne Duncan. I'm the associate vice president of life sciences and head veterinarian at the Detroit Zoo. So, I've been here for over 30 years. first as an associate vet and then as the head vet and so it's been a wonderful place to grow my career and to build a program that provides excellent care for the animals here at the zoo. So the veterinary team has there's four veterinarians and three veterinary technicians. We also have water quality staff and we have a pest control person but the core veterinary team is all women. That's not by design. it just uh veterary medicine is very much a career that has more women than men at this time and there are the most qualified people for the work were women when the positions became available. So I'm very proud of our team. We bring a lot of different interest and expertise. We all bring a lot of passion to our work.

[00:02:15]So today we are in the Ruth Roby Glansancy Animal Health Complex and this is where the veterinary team does all of their work. We are a 7-day a week operation. So making sure that everybody on the team knows what's going on with all of the cases and understands really what we did yesterday, how things went, what we're planning to do today, and then what's coming up in the future is really important.

[00:02:38]Every day we go out into the zoo to check our patients, but there are animals that we bring into the hospital for exams.

[00:02:46]This van is what we use to transport animals into the hospital when we do examinations here. And you can see there's a few unique things about this van. We have an anesthesia machine that we can use to provide gas anesthesia. We have oxygen that we use to supplement animals with oxygen while they're under anesthesia. And then we have the supplies that we use most frequently when we're caring for animals out in the park.

[00:03:12]We're going to head in here. This is our treatment room. And right now it looks like a great big space. And it is a great big space. We're very happy to have it. Um this space can become very crowded though when you're doing an exam on a gorilla. So imagine there's a great big table here. It's a eichcoin table that's hydraulic that we can use to lift and lower really large patients. And then all the people that are involved in exam, which in the case of a gorilla could be a human cardiologist, sometimes a human anesthesia person, an ultrasound technician that works with humans, all kinds of other people that are helping out with a procedure. So this space serves us really well for big complicated surgeries.

[00:04:02]When Machindi came to us in 2023, we did a quarantine exam on him here in the hospital and we noticed that his left hip didn't extend quite as far as his right hip. When he first got here, he moved all over the indoor habitat and over time we noticed that he was limiting the spaces that he was using.

[00:04:20]So the next time that we did an exam, we brought in a human physical therapist and a human orthopedic surgeon to help us evaluate that hip. At that time, we noticed that there was reduced range of motion to the point that he couldn't extend his leg all the way. And so with that, we reached out to a veterinary surgeon who was recommended to us by the gorilla SSP veterinarians and we asked him whether or not he thought there was anything that he could do for Machindi.

[00:04:50]So the zookeepers are the people that are providing day-to-day care and they are trained to look for small subtle changes in the animals that they see day after day.

[00:04:59]>> Is having some sight issues? Oh, I remember now.

[00:05:03]>> I think >> and they communicate that to us. If it's something not very serious, they might put it in their daily report. But if it's something they want us to know about right away, they either text us, radio us, or give us a call. Um, cell phones are awesome because the zookeepers can take videos of animals that are limping. They can take pictures of things that don't look quite normal and send them to us right away. So, that's usually how we find out about problems. So when we did the first exam with Machindi, the other thing that the caretakers had reported is that his appetite wasn't normal. He was eating less. Our thoughts were that that was either because he was uncomfortable from the changes in his hip or maybe there was a dental problem. And we wanted to be sure to check out both of those problems. So in the first exam, we had Dr. Comry come in and he took a close look at everything in the mouth and decided that there was a tooth that needed to be removed. Um, we wanted to make sure that Machindi was in excellent health before he went to surgery.

[00:06:01]>> I'm Ben Colbury. I'm a veterinarian.

[00:06:03]I've been doing this for a lot of years and I enjoy what I'm doing. We dealt with a silverback gorilla that suspected to have some abscess teeth and it turned out uh the teeth are fine on the canines, but he did have a severe periodonal defect between uh two mers that had a huge area of bone loss. So the goal was to create a healthy mouth.

[00:06:28]So the idea is to keep the bacteria out of the inside of the teeth and that was the function of restorives. And then from a pain management standpoint, we got rid of the tooth. And so now, yeah, he's missing a tooth, but the idea is as that the gums heal up, then he's not going to have an area of food entrapment. and uh he might you know growl with a lisp but whatever he'll be fine.

[00:06:55]>> So the day before the surgery Dr. Jimmy Cook came in and we talked about what we were going to do.

[00:07:01]>> Shindi has what we call pinser lesion.

[00:07:05]So the cut part of the hip is is really impinging binding up the ball part of the hip. And so we need to go in and take away the bony impingements on that arthoscopically and then free that up and get the the ball and socket joint back to where it is and probably release some of the soft tissue. both he can't move his hip normally so he can't function normally from the mechanical component but then the pain is limiting and discomfort and that you know then relates to quality of life and in these guys where the socialization behavior is so important then that affects everything um on down the line and his family or his troop and what he's able to do as the alpha male in there minimally invasive procedure really important in these guys um for recovery and even socialization and how they behaviorally can recover from all that. Um, and so hopefully less than an hour, um, get in, really free that hip joint up, take care of any, um, abnormal tissue that's impinging or binding or causing inflammation, and then get him recovered.

[00:08:09]>> We need another bag of IV fluids. As the person who's in charge of the anesthesia and of the safety of both the animal and the people that are in the room, there's a part of my brain that is completely locked on to the anesthesia monitoring.

[00:08:22]I'm listening and listening and listening to every heartbeat, watching the monitors as well to get more detailed information, but you're very in tune with what's going on with the animal. Um, but at the same time, you're paying attention to what's going on with the entire group. These animals are our patients, but they're also animals that we care very much about. And so I did hold his hand. Regardless of the fact that I've done lots and lots of gorilla exams, it always amazes me how big their hands are. But yeah, those little moments of connection are important.

[00:08:54]Missindi, before we did the procedure, he was on pain meds. Um, after the procedure, we've been able to reduce the amount of his pain meds by half, which is really a good thing to be able to do for his long-term health. He climbed all the way up to the skylights almost immediately after the procedure. There's actually a video from the day after the surgery where Machindi brings his foot up to his mouth, which is a motion that he was not able to do probably for years based on what his keepers at other zoos had noticed before he came to us. He brought his foot almost all the way up to his mouth and you could tell he was a little bit surprised by that. So, just being able to see him make that motion um was incredibly heartwarming. It's been 6 months since that surgery and he is now using all of his habitat. He's uh interacting with the females more normally, spending more time uh working with them to make sure that the troop is getting along well and he's basically back to his old normal self. And we were all very very happy with the results of the surgery.

[00:10:01]So, we've seen the coordination and planning that goes into taking care of our large animals like a 400 lb uh gorilla.

[00:10:08]>> But it's not always that complex. No matter the size of the animal, they do still need to plan quite a bit and give just as much love with routine care.

[00:10:17]>> These guys are known to be one of the smallest species of turtles. Um, and so that certainly can present some challenges for us.

[00:10:29]It looks kind of like she has a little bit of an overbite there. And sometimes we do actually have to trim those like you would toenails.

[00:10:40]Not every procedure is as extreme as a surgery. In fact, a majority of the work that the animal care team e executes on a regular basis has to do with the overall well-being and wellness of a routine visit to an animal.

[00:10:52]>> Yeah. And we got to tag along with one of the smallest reptiles here at the zoo um during a routine visit.

[00:10:58]So, this room is our radiology suite and it is where we do most of our exams.

[00:11:05]Taking X-rays is a really quick, easy, non-invasive way to get a lot of information. And so, this table, this is all human equipment, but it can hold uh very, very large patients. And we put all kinds of things on here and get X-rays of really the whole body or any area of the body that we're concerned about. Um, another piece of equipment that we have and are really happy with is our cone beam CT. This is not a traditional CT, but it's it's a CT that's especially useful for looking at bones and really has been designed for looking at teeth. Most of our patients end up in here for at least part of their examination.

[00:11:46]Hello, my name is Winona Shellabarger and I'm one of the associate veterinarians here at the Detroit Zoo and I've been here now about 18 years.

[00:11:55]So, this is called a black breasted leaf turtle and they are here at the hospital today.

[00:12:02]We have three females here today and they're here for what we call our routine preventative health examinations.

[00:12:09]These guys are known to be one of the smallest species of turtles. Um, and so that certainly can present some challenges for us as we're doing our exam and trying to collect samples from them at different times. This one weighs 204 g today.

[00:12:29]And we have a previous weight and we kind of watch for trends in the in the body weight uh to see if there's anything that we would be concerned about. And she is pretty much right on target from where she was last time. So, I'm happy about that. So most of the time with with turtles, we are certainly looking at the health of their shell and the fingernail like material that covers the bony scoops underneath. So I am not seeing anything that would be um of a major concern for me at all. I think her shell looks nice and healthy for the most part. And we're also kind of looking at the skin and the feet and the uh the the vent opening just to make sure everything there looks good. The one thing I am noticing is that um her her upper lip, if you will, it's it's often called a beak or a rhinothea. It looks a little bit long. It looks kind of like she has a little bit of an overbite. Sometimes we do actually have to trim those like you would toenails doing a routine. Most of the time we like to start with a complete blood count, a CBC that tells us what what types of white cells they have and how much of those they have. that might give us an indication of whether there's an infection potential or some other problem going on. Next, we're going to go ahead and get some radioraphs. The radioraphs really help us because of the nature of turtles and tortoises. It makes it very challenging for us to be able to know what's going on inside there sometimes and make sure everything looks okay. So, I'll see what she'll let me do without too much restraint here.

[00:14:09]All right.

[00:14:13]I'm just trying to look inside um through that lens and get a little bit of reflective uh retina there. At least I can tell that the um the lenses look clear, which is good.

[00:14:28]This is the basically a lateral view.

[00:14:32]This is the dorsal spine. that's fused into the shell. Right. This is the lung right here. You can see this is the this is the side view of the skull right here. So, there's the beak, the eye socket right there. So, shall we do a CT on her? A CT scan gives you serial views, cross-sectional views of the whole body in her case. This particular diagnostic test, the CT scan for turtles is really valuable because we can see the bone structure so well, you know, in every view and not seeing anything alarming um at this point. That looks pretty uniform throughout except these little suture lines are normal. That's where the different bony scoots come together, you know, just like suture lines in your skull um in a person.

[00:15:25]So th those are those are normal. I think the only other thing I was going to attempt in her was we were going to see if she would allow me to trim her beak a little bit. So again, this is kind of like um filing your fingernail, if you will, only it's a little thicker. It's doing good. Again, we're just trying to file it smooth and shorten it a little bit.

[00:15:46]She might have just a slight overbite anyway. So, we're probably not going to turn this all the way back.

[00:15:54]She had a little beak lip. Little Manny Petty. So much of it that excites me every day is coming in knowing that I am helping um some of the animals in my care and working with animal care staff.

[00:16:12]that is so passionate and knowledgeable about the animals that they're caring for. It's it's contagious. I mean, it is truly.

[00:16:21]>> We work on patients of every size from very very small song bird sized animals all the way up to rhinos. We use endotraccheial tubes um to deliver oxygen and gases into their lungs of as small as this, which we would use for a really small bird. Um, we have, you can see in here, all different sizes. There are a few companies that help um provide things for zoos, but for the most part, we're modifying things that are used for large animals. But you can see this tube here. We used a red rubber catheter, which you generally use to catheterize the urinary tract of of a small animal like a dog or cat. and we have um changed it up so that we can use it to support the airways of a bird and just cut it off and made it the right size and shape for that. So we are maggyvering things to make sure that we have what we need. These are examples of some of the masks that we use for delivering anesthesia to patients. And this is a typical mask used for an adult human and then a smaller one that you would use for a child. Uh this is a very typical mask you would use for a dog in small animal practice. And then we also have used things around the clinic to modify and make larger ones. So this is what we often use for hoofstock animals.

[00:17:42]We can stick their whole nose in here.

[00:17:44]Um we've made this out of a gallon jug.

[00:17:47]And this is something that we would use for a long beaked bird like a crane. Um we also could use this for an anteater.

[00:17:55]um an animal that has a very very long nose that we need to be able to fit all the way in there. Necessity is the mother of invention. You, you know, identify that you have to come up with some way of doing this and you figure it out.

[00:18:08]>> So, we've seen what the routine care looks like for one of the residents at the Holden Reptile Conservation Center.

[00:18:13]>> And now I think it's time to make a house call.

[00:18:19]>> Today we're going to be doing exams on Waco and Hudson. um two of our our sand hill cranes. Anytime you have a bird in hand, it it is a really stressful experience. So, we try to be as swift as humanly possible.

[00:18:39]When I was younger, an uncle in our family used to talk about how uh sometimes there would need to be a medical visit to someone's home because they couldn't get into the doctor's office or the dentist office. And sometimes we need uh the medical team to come out and visit animals in their habitats, which are their homes.

[00:18:55]>> Yeah. Not every animal can make their way to the animal health complex. And so it's awesome that we have the vets that can come out to the habitat and make sure they get everything they need, like the sandill cranes.

[00:19:09]>> Every day we go out into the zoo to check our patients. And these are the bags that we generally take with us that have the supplies that we use to change bandages, draw blood from a patient, uh put ointment on a patient, or just the usual types of things we use for rounds.

[00:19:25]A lot of our exams are done out in the zoo because that's where animals are most comfortable. So, these are examples of things we would use if we were doing an eye exam. There's some instruments that we might need, some syringes, blood tubes, um the typical things that we might need for a visit, a patient visit out in the zoo. These are things that we might use to um to treat a wound. Common ointments that we use, quick stop in case we have an animal with a broken nail.

[00:20:02]So, a little bit of everything.

[00:20:04]Sometimes you get out there and there's still something that you realize you wish you had, but we try to put everything that we might need out in the out in the park in here um for our visits.

[00:20:20]My name is Dr. Jane Chrisman. I'm one of the associate veterinarians here at the Detroit Zoo. I've been here at the Detroit Zoo for a little over 5 years now. Today we're going to be doing exams on Waco and Hudson. um two of our our sand hill cranes. Yeah. So, this is a back area of the zoo that we call the bird breeding pens. And so, we keep this area for um like birds that we don't have on on habitat, so they don't have any um visual access to the public. Um but it's they still have lots of space and outside access and everything like that. So, we try to be as swift as humanly possible, kind of like a pit crew, kind of doing what we need to do and then getting them um out of out of our hands. So, this is Nate and Brandon, two of our zookeepers here that are going to be helping us out today um with our two exams.

[00:21:13]All right. So, we're going to start with our blood sample first cuz while the birds are in hand, they do get uh more stressed out. So, we're going to try to make sure that um we get our blood sample first because that can affect our values.

[00:21:26]So, Ally, I'll walk you through. Um this is our vet student and we're going to have her um be drawing our blood sample on. So, with these um it we do the right side of his jugular vein because that'll end up being right here. I kind of use the back of my hand to support the rest of the neck. Nice job.

[00:21:46]Try to get a full 3 cc's if you can.

[00:21:48]Cool. And then I'll hold off for you.

[00:21:50]And then if you want to put that in three different green top tubes.

[00:21:55]So we'll do a full top down physical exam. So we got our blood sample first.

[00:22:00]And then I'm just going to look at him pretty much from the front to the top.

[00:22:04]So I'll start with his eyes.

[00:22:07]Taking a look at all of the structures in the back of the eye. Looking for things like cataracts, which they can get as they're older. He looks really good. Everything looks good there. From there, I run my fingers down his front.

[00:22:22]Palpate his um all of his flight muscles and his bones of his shoulders. Now, I'm feeling down a portion called his keel, which is a bone that runs along the front of their body that attaches a lot of their big muscles for flight. And it's also where they hold down a lot of fat. So, we can tell whether or not he's chubby or not based off of that. And he's he is maybe a little tiny bit on the plump side. I'll take my stethoscope and just take a listen.

[00:22:54]Nice. Good heart rate. Nice and steady.

[00:22:56]Don't hear any heart murmurss or any other problems. And I'll borrow this leg from you.

[00:23:04]Now, since they are older, they do tend to get arthritis. And so, I'm just feeling all of his joints.

[00:23:10]Feeling his hip joint and flexing and extending his knee.

[00:23:18]and his ankle here. Hand that back. And then last but not least is the wings.

[00:23:24]Take this wing.

[00:23:28]Peel the joints. Check out the feathers.

[00:23:31]He's beautiful. All right. Then have to make sure I give him his West Nile vaccine.

[00:23:38]We'll just spread some of the feathers.

[00:23:40]And then there's a good little spot of muscle right there.

[00:23:44]Nice. Perfect.

[00:23:48]Good job. Good job, buddy.

[00:23:52]So, I'm going to use a a Dremel tool to to do his beak trim today. It's the same sort of tool that you can find at a hardware store. Um, and his beak is made with the same sort of stuff that our fingernails are. Um, just like a dog's fingernails, they do have a blood supply a little deeper down. So, I'm going to try really hard um to kind of read the tissue and make sure I'm not getting close to that blood supply. Um, but I know I'm able to take stuff off and this won't hurt him. Um, because they don't really have any nerve endings, no blood vessels that go all the way down to the tip. Um, so I'm just going to kind of use this to smooth out the edges and try to bring that back so it looks more more natural.

[00:24:33]grumbling at me.

[00:24:47]I went to this zoo growing up and there's a picture of me in my office when I was a little girl with my mom holding me in front of the polar bear habitat. So, you know, this was my hometown zoo. I've always loved the Detroit Zoo and it's always had a special place in my heart.

[00:25:03]>> It makes me very proud that we have such a great team that they're so dedicated that they're willing to put in long hard hours when necessary to provide the care that the animals need here. I think a lot of people are surprised by the level of medical care that we provide here. I think people are surprised to see that we have a CT, that we have a full radiology suite available for our patients here, that we use ultrasound on a regular basis. All the different anesthesia equipment that we have, I think that's surprising to some people.

[00:25:35]We practice veterinary medicine at a very high level.

[00:25:44]It's actually similar >> from big to small, from habitat to hospital. We've had a chance to witness some incredible care led by an all female veterinary team.

[00:25:54]>> Yeah, it's that expertise and passion that really make a difference for the animals that call the Detroit Zoo home.

[00:26:00]>> So, next time you visit the Detroit Zoo, remember what it takes to take care of the animals here, both inside and out.

[00:26:06]And I love that.

[00:26:29]Heat.