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Surgery restores vision to rare tiger cub

NANCHANG (CHINA): A South China tiger cub has regained its eyesight after what is believed to be the first ever cataract removal surgery on the critically-endangered big cat species.

The cataracts of the one-year-old cub were removed on January 27, said Zhao Wei, a Nanchang Zoo official in Jiangxi Province. The operation lasted an hour.

The male cub, coded 393, is one of the country’s two surviving South China tigers born through artificial insemination.

It was born in Shanghai on February 8 last year and was sent to Nanchang after six months.

Zoo workers suspected it was unable to see because it often ran into walls and fences and could only sniff for food.

In December, the cub was diagnosed with congenital cataracts in both eyes, a result of inbreeding.

South China tiger cubs are prone to congenital defects because almost all the 72 tigers bred in captivity nationwide are descended from six tigers captured in the wild in 1955.

“We were very concerned over whether the cub should be operated on at all,” said Mr. Zhao. “Some zoo workers said the species was too rare to take the risk.”

Chinese veterinarians and doctors have reported success in cataract removals on Siberian tigers, but had never operated on a South China tiger. Zoo managers finally decided to take the risk, and entrusted the job to a top eye surgeon at a hospital affiliated to Nanchang University.

“I removed cataracts from thousands of humans, but it was the first time I have operated on a tiger,” said Dr. Liu Fei. “Cats have a third eyelid and their anatomy is quite different from humans.”

She invited the hospital’s best anaesthetist, Prof. Xu Guohai, to be part of the operating team. For safety considerations, Mr. Xu consulted doctors who had worked on Siberian tigers and giant pandas for advice.

As the sensors on the electrocardiograph for human beings could not penetrate the tiger’s thick fur, Mr. Xu had to use his hands and auscultatory devices to monitor the animal’s heart and breathing. Zoo workers said the cub was recuperating well after the operation. “Apparently, he can see several metres and has endeared himself to human beings.”

The South China tiger, also called the Amoy or Xiamen tiger, is thought to be the ancestor of all tigers, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

It is considered critically endangered, mainly due to the loss of habitat. In the early 1950s there were about 4,000 in the wild. By 1996, however, they numbered only 30 to 80, according to the World Conservation Union’s Red List of threatened species. Today, the tiger is believed to be extinct in the wild.

To save the captive tigers from extinction, London-based Save China’s Tigers and Chinese Tigers South Africa signed an accord in 2002 to send between five and 10 South China tigers to South Africa to learn how to survive in the wild.

In November, a cub was born to a South China tiger pair in South Africa, the first to be born outside China. — Xinhua

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