Laparoscopic Surgery on Rhino Performed at San Diego Zoo's
Wild Animal Park

February 22, 2007

A team of veterinarians and animal care staff performed laparoscopic surgery on two female white rhinoceroses at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park February 21 and February 22. Developed for humans, laparoscopic technology is helping veterinarians perform minimally invasive surgical techniques on animals that allow for shorter operation time, smaller incisions and quicker recovery time.

"The objective of these surgeries was to harvest ovaries from two northern white rhinos, an endangered species," said Jeff Zuba, DVM, associate veterinarian at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. "Recent technological advances allow us to recover very important tissue from these animals that are nonreproductive but extremely important for the conservation of this species."

There are less than 20 northern white rhinoceroses estimated remaining in the world and 15,000 southern white rhinoceroses.

In the last few years, Dr. Zuba and Dean Hendrickson, D.V.M., professor of surgery at Colorado State University, joined a team from Disney's Animal Programs to perform sterilizations using this same equipment in free-roaming elephants in Africa.

"It's only been in the last two to three years that laparoscopic technology has progressed in megavertebrates like elephants," said Dr. Hendrickson. "This is the first opportunity we've had to use this new instrumentation in a rhinoceros."

Wild Animal Park veterinarians, keepers, and members of its research division, the center for Conservation and Research for Endangered Species (CRES), joined together to remove an ovary from one northern white rhinoceros and one southern white rhinoceros when there was a long-term failure to breed. Both rhinos have reached post-reproductive age.

"This technology probably will not save this species, but we can save their important genetic material," said Barbara Durrant, Ph.D., associate director of Reproductive Physiology for CRES. "These animals represent a unique genetic component in their ecosystem. They represent a genetic history, a natural history that just cannot be replaced."

More

Why Do First-generation, Captive-born White Rhinoceros Females Fail to Reproduce?
Stress Assessment of Black and Southern White Rhinoceroses
Chemical Communication in White Rhinoceroses: Insights from Captivity and the Wild