UP vets perform extractive tusk surgery on elephant in Poland

Two University of Pretoria (UP) veterinarians saved the life of a 5.5-ton elephant at Poznan Zoo in Poland, by performing a surgical extraction of his damaged tusk.

Ninio, an African elephant, suffered a severe infection in July after a crack appeared at the bottom of his right tusk.

Professor Gerhard Steenkamp, who teaches courses in dentistry and maxillofacial surgery of animals at UP’s Faculty of Veterinary Science and Professor Adrian Tordiffe – a veterinary wildlife specialist – performed the five-hour surgery on Ninio. Having vast experience in elephant anesthesia and dentistry, Profs Tordiffe and Steenkamp first treated Ninio at Poznan Zoo in 2012 and 2013 when they extracted his left tusk.

In 2015 they returned to Poland because Ninio had damaged his right tusk. “Fortunately, it was not severely infected and Gerhard was able to do a partial pulpectomy, removing part of the damaged pulp and sealing the tusk with a hard nylon plug. This worked well until a crack was noticed on the bottom edge of this remaining tusk in July this year.”

The vets flew almost 33 hours last week to perform the surgery. “I immobilised Ninio with a  powerful drug called etorphine that I needed special permission to carry with me to Poland as its use is highly controlled, and it is currently not available in that country. Ninio went down as expected, but his legs were rotated toward the wrong side so we had to push him over onto his right side,” explained Prof Tordiffe.

Prof Adrian Tordiffe keeps an eye on Ninio

Fortunately, the zoo had installed an 8-ton crane onto the roof of Ninio’s night quarters, and the team turned him over onto his left side so that Prof Steenkamp could comfortably work on his right tusk. Prof Tordiffe then administered a combination of intravenous drugs to Ninio to keep him asleep and to minimise the pain. “Gerhard soon confirmed that the tusk was severely infected and that extracting it was the only option.”

The tusk was massive with an outer circumference of 53cm at the level of the lip. Ninio seemed to be sensitive to the intravenous anaesthetic drugs and his breathing became shallow, said Prof Tordiffe. “I placed an endotracheal tube and was able to ventilate him for about 30 minutes until his breathing improved. Gerhard was able to extract the main part of the tusk quite quickly, but then struggled to remove some very hard pieces of abnormal ivory that had formed deep in the tusk socket because of the infection. Using a massive drill, he tried to break up these pieces of hard ivory.”

After five hours of anaesthesia and backbreaking surgery, Prof Steenkamp decided that enough of the diseased ivory had been removed to allow for the empty socket to heal. “We gave Ninio the antidotes to the anaesthetic drugs and the team helped to push him onto his chest so that he could get back onto his feet,” said Prof Tordiffe.

Ninio was stable on his feet after the surgery and was moving normally, but he was not eating or drinking well and appeared to be in some pain. “After we managed to get a second dose of painkillers into him, hidden in a juicy watermelon, he started eating and drinking again and by the time we left (48 hours after the surgery) he was almost back to his normal self.”

There are a few veterinary teams in the world that are capable of doing this kind of surgery and Prof Tordiffe believes that he and Prof Steenkamp have more experience than anyone else.

Prof Gerhard Steenkamp works on removing parts of the tusk

Prof Steenkamp has perfected the general extraction technique, but there are still aspects that they are hoping to improve on, said Prof Tordiffe. “We need to create better instruments to break up the hard ivory pearls that often form in these cases and we need to find drug combinations that are more effective at reducing the post-operative pain. Each case seems to present us with unique challenges, but the more we do, the more we are able to test and modify new ideas to ensure a more successful outcome for the animal.”

Last year they successfully extracted the tusk of an Asian elephant at Tbilisi Zoo in Georgia. That procedure was filmed by the BBC for their Big Animal Surgery series, which will be aired in South Africa on DStv Channel 184 (BBC Earth) on Monday 9 September at 19:00. To view the video of the surgery, click on the link https://youtu.be/IZqE2qgtLsI

Researchers

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  Prof David Walwyn

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  Professor Chika Sehoole

  Can robots and machines replace a teacher in a classroom? I pose this question in light of the excitement around the Fourth Industrial Revolution that has taken the world by storm with concerns about the future of work Already in South Africa, banks are laying people off because of mechanisation, the University of Pretoria has employed a service robot in its library, developments that add to the concerns that the future of work is in danger. A study by the McKinsey Global Institute reports that 50% of companies believe that automation will decrease their numbers of full-time staff by 2022, and robots will replace 800 million workers across the world by 2030. In addressing the question of whether machines will replace teachers, allow me to take you through memory lane to reflect on the work of three great teachers from the rural village of Marapyane who left an indelible mark on my schooling in a way that no machine or robot could have. Mr Piet Makinta, my Standard 7 (Grade 9) Afrikaans teacher was an outstanding teacher who came to class every day, gave us classwork almost every day, and the turnaround time for marking our classwork was 24 hours. He was an example of a teacher who loved his subject and passed on the passion and desire to learn more to his students. When the teacher not only has the right answer to a student's question but can also expand the discussion with vivid examples and relevant facts; and when the teacher has a deep well of understanding and expertise to draw on, then every lesson is enriched, and every student might be inspired. Mr Makinta showed discipline and dedication towards his work and this had an infectious effect on us. We looked forward to his class, anticipated acquiring new vocabulary of the language of the oppressor and had fun learning through amusing illustrative anecdotes that led us to develop love for this language.

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  Professor Robin Crewe

  Robin Crewe was born in Johannesburg and studied at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg and at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA for his PhD. For a period of ten years (1986-1996) he was the Director of the Communication Biology Research Group of the University of the Witwatersrand where a major focus of the group’s work was the study of honeybee chemical communication systems. He established the Social Insects Research Group (SIRG) at the University of Pretoria, which continues with studies of social insects under the direction of Prof Christian Pirk. He was a Vice-Principal of the University of Pretoria from 2003 until his retirement from this position in June 2013. He is a past president of the Academy of Science of South Africa. His current research is focused on chemical communication and social organisation in honeybees and ants, particularly with respect to worker reproductive regulation. He is the Chair of the Special Projects Committee of the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions, Convenor of the APIMONDIA Africa Working Group on Honey Standards and Adulteration, Member of APIMONDIA Working Group on Adulteration of Bee Products. He is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London, a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, a Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences, a founding member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, a Fellow of the African Academy of Science, a Foreign Associate of Hassan II Academy of Science and Technology in Morocco and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Zoological Society of South Africa, and honorary life membership of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa. He was awarded the prestigious Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship for 2012 and the ASSAf Gold Medal for meritorious service in 2013. In 2019, he was the winner of the National Science and Technology Forum-South32 Award for a contribution to Science over a lifetime. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria. 1. What first got you interested in entomology and bees in particular? My interest in chemistry and biochemistry when I was a student, attracted me to the study of chemical communication systems in insects that were being explored for the first time when I started doing research. This lead to a life-long fascination with these systems. 2. What is the most fascinating thing about bees that most people don’t know? Most people don’t realise that social interactions are controlled by a set of chemical signals produced by the queen. 3. With the widespread use of pesticides, there’s been a lot of talk of bees going extinct. What would happen to our world if that were the case? The outcome is difficult to predict, since if bees were to go extinct then many other insect species would also go extinct with unpredictable consequences for humans. The immediate effect of the loss of honey bees would be a dramatic decline in food production and hence large-scale food shortages that would likely lead to famine. 4. You’ve studied communication among bees for many years as well as their society. What have been some of the key findings over the years? We have defined the chemical mixtures that make up signals produced by queens and we’ve shown how these chemical signals can also be produced by workers if the social conditions in the colony change. We have explored the way these signals affect the physiology and behaviour of individuals within the colony. 5. Why do you think their society is so similar to ours or why do we see so many parallels between our society and theirs? Bee societies appear to be well regulated, harmonious and led by a dominant individual. This has the appearance of similarity to autocratic human societies and leads to the feeling that such societies represent a ‘natural order’. However, the differences are striking in that honey bee societies consist almost exclusively of females and the queen, which is the reproductive individual and the large number of workers that are non-reproductive. 6. What do you do in your spare time? I have become interested in flying quadcopter drones that can be used to study honey bees’ mating behaviour. 7. Do you chase bees away when they get too close to you? I ignore them since they are unlikely to do anything to you. If you brush them away or swat at them, you stand good chance of being stung. 8. How many times have you been stung by bees? When working with honey bee colonies, we get stung regularly.

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  Prof Michael S Pepper

  Director, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Director, South African Medical Research Council {SAMRC) Extramural Unit for Stem Cell Research and Therapy Department of Immunology, Faculty of Health Sciences Area of research: Translational multi-disciplinary cellular and molecular medicine Professor Michael Pepper has been doing research at UP since 2005. Hy says his research is aimed at improving the quality of life of South Africans and reducing the heavy disease burden in the country. His group’s research goal is to understand disease pathogenesis and to develop cell and gene therapies for selected diseases. His research group has identified key areas that contribute to the burden of disease in South Africa including communicable disease such as HIV and Covid-19, non-communicable diseases including obesity or cancer, and maternal and child health issues such as “birth asphyxia”. The project on “birth asphyxia” has recently received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Professor Pepper’s research group is working on the identification of biomarkers (molecular and imaging) for this condition. This is important for understanding disease pathogenesis as well as for the design of an interventional clinical trial aimed at assessing the efficacy of one or more neuroprotective agents in these patients. In the past 18 months Professor Pepper’s research group has started two new Covid-19 projects namely genetic determinants of susceptibility and severity as well as novel therapies for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Professor Pepper is working with Professor Fourie Joubert from the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and Professor Pieter de Villiers from the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment, and Information Technology in trenadisciplinary cross-faculty research. Professor Pepper says the work they are doing is inspired by a need to address the needs of the country, and to ensure that taxpayers’ money is being spent responsibly. Significant advances are being made, and medical research in selected fields in South Africa is being conducted at the highest level globally. Professor Pepper’s advice to prospective and undergraduate students who are interested in his field is to find their passion and not to be driven by a desire for fame or material goods. They should be prepared to work hard and be ready to adapt to the rapidly changing environment in which we live. His hobbies and interests are horse-riding and theatre. (Words 388)

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