African Bush Elephant at Tama Zoo, is now five years old and has grown considerably larger. Tomu is as mischievous and energetic as ever, but recently he had an incident where the tip of his left tusk chipped off.

As we previously reported, Tomu's tusks are Hippopotamus. This is because, ever since he was at his birthplace, Tobe Zoo, he had a habit of poking and scraping walls and other surfaces with his tusks. To prevent the tips of his tusks from wearing down or breaking, we have covered them with Hippopotamus made from fire hoses, medical casts, and other materials.

・ "Update on African Bush Elephant 'Tomu'" (January 18, 2013)

However, Hippopotamus would often break or come off as Tomu, who was in his playful stage, would peck at logs and piles of dirt with his tusks.

That day, the bird must have attacked logs and other objects with its tusk, which still had Hippopotamus missing. The upper tip of its left tusk was chipped. Leaving it as is would be a big problem if the crack spread from the chipped part down to the base. So, we decided to cut off the chipped part to flatten the tip of the tusk.

To trim Tomu's fangs, he needs to stay still. There is a method of anesthetizing him before trimming, but in Tomu's case, when we put Hippopotamus on his fangs, we can get him to stick his fangs out from the training fence and keep him still while we feed him. So, I wondered if we could use this method to trim his fangs.

The next day, we began practicing cutting the tusks. At first, we gradually got the tusks used to the tools, such as the saw, by letting them touch the tusks while we touched them. Once they were comfortable with the tools, we moved on to more realistic methods, such as rubbing the tusks with a file to create vibrations, or lightly cutting the tip of Hippopotamus with the saw. Initially, the tusks were conscious of the tools and the cutting motion, but with daily repetition, they gradually stopped worrying about them.

On the 19th day of training, we let Tomu's tusks extend beyond the fence and began cutting the tips. Tomu didn't seem to mind at all and quietly ate his food. The tusks were hard, and the saw blade broke a few times, but we managed to cut them off in less than 10 minutes. We then reinforced the cut tips with a cast and finished the procedure.

We will continue to accustom him to the procedure so that we can perform it again in the future, and we also plan to perform the same procedure on his right fang.

Photo above: The left tusk is missing.
Photo: During tusk cutting
Photo below: Tomu, who can wait patiently, after his fangs were cut off.

[Tomoki Saito, Animal Care and Exhibition Staff, North Tama Zoo]

(0711, 2014)