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Think getting your pet to the vet is a pain? Now imagine if Fido had four-inch claws and weighed as much as a horse. That’s the situation Canada’s Quebec Aquarium staff found themselves in when they had to take their polar bear to the vet this past December.
The bear, a four-year-old named Kinuk, had been experiencing tremors and needed to be professionally assessed. The problem was that he weighs about 9,900 pounds. That’s way more than a high-powered pickup truck can carry, let alone the average car. And putting Kinuk on a leash was out of the question. For one thing, the vet’s office was more than 120 miles away. For another, polar bears are one of the most lethal animals on the planet. They’re swift predators and have a bite force of 1,200 pounds per square inch. Get on Kinuk’s bad side, and the already precarious transportation situation could go sideways in an instant.
To pull it off, zoo staff members borrowed the most powerful vehicle they could think of: an industrial forklift. It took about two and half hours to drive the painfully slow vehicle across the Quebec countryside to Saint-Hyacinthe, the closest vet with polar-bear-sized facilities. Once there, they gave Kinuk a bear-sized dose of veterinary sedative. That kept him asleep just long enough to perform the required tests. They also used other safety precautions, like keeping him in a crate while traveling.Â
It took a huge team of neurologists, eterinarians, and other specialists to manage the operation and perform all the necessary tests. They discovered that the source of his tremors may be neurological in origin, but that he doesn’t have any acute illnesses — a great relief to zoo staff and polar bear fans across Canada.
Kinuk is now back home at the Quebec Aquarium and — we’re happy to report — appears to be feeling much better.
