In December, the ABQ BioPark Zoo became one of a dozen zoos in the U.S. to add an on-site CT scanner to its veterinary care system.
CT scanners provide advanced imaging through a series of X-rays, generating a more detailed, 3D rendition of the 2D X-ray information, Carol Bradford, the senior veterinarian at the BioPark, said.
“In the past, we would take X-rays or ultrasound here at the zoo, and then if there was something we felt we were not able to diagnose or diagnose properly, we would take the animal off grounds to a veterinary specialty hospital,” Bradford said.
This process sometimes involved anesthetizing the animals and transporting them off-site, taking multiple hours, according to Bradford.
CT scanners like the FUJIFILM Healthcare Americas Corporation machine now in use at the Biopark have been introduced to veterinary medicine in few other zoos in the United States, such as the Houston Zoo, the Denver Zoo and the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.
“We took a gorilla (off-site) before, we took wolves, we took a jaguar,” Bradford said. “Having that safety risk and transportation just wasn't ideal, so this whole thought process of getting an on-ground CT has been a few years in the works, and it just kind of came together over the past year that we actually were able to get one and renovate our zoo vet clinic to accommodate it.”
The CT scanner can support up to a 500-pound animal, which precludes larger animals such as rhinos or elephants, but could provide scans of small gorillas, lions or tigers, Bradford said.
“I would say over the last five or 10 years, (CT scanners) have become more common. I think for a zoo our size, it's definitely pretty cool because not many zoos our size have gotten them,” Bradford said. “More and more, zoos are seeing the imaging quality that you get and the detail, and sometimes that's what you need to diagnose what's going on with your animal patients. So, it's becoming more common, but I wouldn't say it's ‘common’ quite yet.”
CT scans are a part of preventive care to help the veterinary team diagnose issues earlier and move to treatment plans sooner, according to the City of Albuquerque.
The scanner is already in use at the BioPark Zoo, which houses more than 900 animals, with scans currently being done roughly twice a week as part of routine preventative care, according to Bradford.
“There's not a huge database as to what a CT scan looks like in an armadillo or some of the more rare animals,” Bradford said. “So it's just kind of getting that information when the patient is healthy, so we have something to compare it to if something should happen and the animal becomes sick.”
Maria Fernandez is the copy editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at copy@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
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