CHATTANOOGA (WRCB) -- A Chimpanzee at the Chattanooga Zoo had his heart
examined Wednesday by a "human heart doctor."
Students from the University of Tennessee's School of Veterinary
Medicine were on hand to watch.
Zoos around the nation, including the Chattanooga Zoo, are taking pro-active
steps for their chimps. Because data is scarce, our local zoo is teaming up
with other zoos to share the information.
Chattanooga Zoo Executive Director Darde Long says,"Wow, a cardiologist
working on one of our animals."
It wasn't just a wow moment for the Chattanooga Zoo, it was indeed a wow
moment for cardiologist Dr. Bill Warren, who was administering Chattanooga's
first ever echocardiogram on a chimpanzee.
"This is my first experience with an animal, other than taking care of
my dog Sparky," Dr. Warren says. "So, I'm branching out a little bit."
Before you wonder why a human heart doctor would oversee the 180 pound chimp
known as Goliath's procedure, Warren says it's basically the same as reading a
human's echocardiogram.
But unlike humans, you have to sedate the big guy,
"As these animals are living longer in captivity, they're developing
heart disease, some of the same types that I see in older patients in my
practice," Dr. Warren says.
Heart disease is the number one killer of great apes. The Chattanooga Zoo is
now taking steps to prevent it before it's too late. They're sharing their data
with zoos around the nation.
"We used to look at them when they were really old, but now we're
walking back," UT Zoo and Wildlife Professor Ed Ramsay says. "We can catch it
and figure out what actually causes it."
The whole process took less than 20 minutes. Again, nobody entered the room
until Goliath was sedated.
The average life span of a chimp in captivity is 40 years. Goliath is
35 years old and as we learned on Wednesday, he has a clean bill of health
and his ticker is as strong as it should be.
"If his echo would have come across my desk at work I would have rated
it a real human echo," Dr. Warren says.
