The Hippo with Toothache

by Lucy H Spelman

  Unfortunately, the unusually large storm surge severely damaged the facility and swept the dolphins out to sea. Miraculously, all eight were rescued twelve days later by the Navy, and temporarily housed at the Gulfport, Mississippi naval base. The five that had endured the storm in hotel swimming pools found temporary homes at Florida’s Gulfarium in Fort Walton Beach. The Oceanarium owned four additional dolphins that were on loan to various other institutions in the Northeast. They had been scheduled to return to Gulfport in the near future, and now they too were homeless.

  Just prior to the hurricane, I had accepted a job at Atlantis resort in Nassau, Bahamas, as staff veterinarian. We were in the process of developing a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility for dolphins when Katrina hit. Atlantis offered the dolphins a home and Marine Life Oceanarium agreed. After the initial excitement, I found my new job turning into many late nights spent preparing for the dolphins’ arrival. The health and welfare of the Katrina dolphins would soon be my responsibility, and I had to make sure that our facility contained everything they might need.

  A top priority was to get to know the dolphins before we moved them to the Bahamas. That way, I’d be aware of their current health status and be able to detect a health problem early on. In the short month available to me before the move date, I visited as many of the aquaria and temporary facilities housing the dolphins as possible. I headed first to the naval base in Mississippi to meet the eight dolphins that had been swept out to sea three months earlier. Unused to fishing for themselves, the dolphins had lost noticeable weight and were in fragile condition at the time of their rescue. With the help of good nutrition and supportive care, they were now improving.

  The day I arrived was cold and wet. Steady rain fell on the blue plastic roof of the warehouse where the dolphins had lived since the hurricane. As I stepped inside the shadowy, musty-smelling building, a cheery hello surprised me. The greeting came from one of the civilians employed to make sure the dolphins had clean artificial seawater in which to live. Enveloped in a large gray sweatshirt emblazoned “Navy” and sporting a blond braid down her back, the young woman was huddled by an electric heater. I shivered in my black Gore-Tex jacket and pulled it closer around me.

  In a makeshift booth at one side of the vast building, the trainers were putting together the dolphins’ meal of capelin and herring. I watched as they stuffed the fish with pills, hiding vitamins and medication deep inside where the dolphins wouldn’t notice. Their haggard faces showed the strain of working long hours on behalf of the dolphins, with few days off. I wondered if part of their dedication to these animals was the shared experience of the hurricane; the trainers had lost their homes and belongings to the storm too.

  There were two large collapsible pools in one corner of the warehouse, similar in size to the average backyard swimming pool. When the trainers approached the first pool, four surprisingly healthy-looking dolphins raised their heads out of the foamy water littered with play toys like hula hoops, plastic bats, and balls; they were eager for their next meal. Another four heads emerged for their fish in the second pool. The trainers introduced me to each one: Toni, Kelly, Tamra, Jill, Elijah, Noah, Jackie, and Michelle.

  Though the warehouse itself felt gloomy, I could see the dolphins were well taken care of. I also knew they had a bright future. No expense had been spared during construction of their new home in Nassau, and the location was ideal—a lovely, warm vacation destination. The Atlantis facility included an acclimation habitat built on an intercoastal waterway and an inland permanent habitat. Each offered spacious open-water bedrooms and even larger interactive play areas. Water quality had been checked for the past year, and plans called for continued checks four times a week. Local fish schooled throughout the habitat, adding interest to the natural bottom that was meticulously scanned by snorkelers and divers to ensure that it was free of harmful debris.

  The medical monitoring equipment was superior to that of most local hospitals. Blood samples could be analyzed in five minutes. Digital images of microscopic cells could be shared instantly with specialists hundreds of miles away. A hood and incubator had been installed so that the laboratory could perform its own microbiology work. An ultrasound unit the size of a waffle maker could be taken dockside to monitor pregnancies. The pharmacy contained all the medications the dolphins could ever need. The management plan focused on prevention: respirations, appetite, and attitude would be monitored daily, blood work and blowhole excretions routinely.

  When I left the Mississippi warehouse that day, I felt bad for the trainers. They would certainly miss these friendly and intelligent animals with whom they had developed such special bonds. With the departure of the dolphins, they would also have to find new jobs.

  The next week, I flew to Florida to meet five more of the dolphins. I was able to spend two weeks with this group, and felt as though I got to know them well. There were two lively adolescents, Jonah and Brewer; a mother-and-daughter pair, Cherie and Katelyn; and an older female, Tessie. The trainers often played football and chase with Jonah and Katelyn after meals and daily exercises, and I jumped at the chance to join in. Assuming a more veterinary role, I examined the animals as they went through their husbandry routines. I consulted with the veterinarians who were in charge of their care at the time and pored over their medical records. I also helped prepare the transport containers.

  Though I struggled not to show preference, Jonah quickly became my favorite. His upturned nose gave him a permanent cartoonish smile, and his impish ways and eagerness to interact with me, as well as with the other dolphins, made him irresistible. Brewer, a few years older than Jonah, had an entirely different personality, dutiful and eager to please. As for the females, the mother-and-daughter pair could not have been more different from each other. Sweet, graceful, and beautiful, Katelyn was endearing. Her mother, Cherie, had a devilish side.

  Tessie was another story. Stricken by a rare fungal disease since the hurricane, she’d been fighting for her life. Only one other dolphin had been known to survive this type of infection, narrowly escaping death with the help of a new medication imported from Europe. During my brief visit in Florida, Tessie’s condition had stabilized on this new medicine, but it was a struggle. The dedicated veterinary staff and trainers spent long hours coaxing Tessie to eat and accept her treatments. Fortunately, the fungus was not contagious to the other dolphins. Tessie was, technically, the seventeenth Katrina dolphin. Sadly, she was too ill to join the other sixteen on the flight to Nassau.

  Two days before our flight to Nassau, I met the other four dolphins for the first time. I’d flown north to the National Aquarium in Baltimore to meet two males, Echo and Wee Tee, and participate in their move by truck to the airport. I’d spent only a short amount of time with this pair, but had been impressed by their alertness. Always on the lookout, ignoring each other but acutely aware of anything out of the ordinary, they would have made great espionage agents. Fortunate to have missed the hurricane, they’d been on loan to a Philadelphia aquarium when the storm hit; recently, they’d been moved to Baltimore.

  The next day, I met the final two dolphins, Naia and Sasha, just as they were readied to board the plane. They’d been living at a New Jersey facility at the time of the hurricane. Since I’d had no chance to get to know them, I planned to spend extra time with them once we settled in at the new facility.

  It had been a strenuous month for me, to put it mildly. In preparation for the move, I’d gone over every possible scenario in my mind. It’s rare to transport so many dolphins at once, and a lot could go wrong. The animals might thrash around in their transport units, or breathe too rapidly due to stress. I was prepared to sedate them, but only if necessary.

  The first step of the transport hadn’t started off well at all. In Baltimore, Wee Tee and Echo were due to be moved onto a truck in late afternoon in preparation for the journey to the Philadelphia airport. Our trip out of Baltimore and into Philly had been carefully scheduled to occur at ni
ght, to avoid high traffic both on the streets and at the airport. But the pump in the dolphins’ pool malfunctioned; we were unable to lower the water enough so that we could glide the dolphins into their transport hammocks. Eventually, the maintenance staff fixed the problem, but the delay threatened to disrupt our precise schedule.

  With the pool drained, I watched anxiously as the trainers positioned Echo into his hammock first, followed by Wee Tee. A pulley system lifted both hammocks out of the pool and a digital scale measured their weights: 450 pounds for Echo and 400 for Wee Tee. The dolphins appeared calm, though they must have been acutely aware that everything around them was changing. Once loaded onto a twenty-four-foot rental truck, the hammocks were suspended inside special individual transportation units filled with water kept at a cozy 76° Fahrenheit. Finally I had something to do that would directly benefit my patients: before we drove off into the chill night air, I liberally rubbed vitamin A and D ointment onto the dolphins’ bodies to help prevent chafing and desiccation.

  While a team of police officers on motorcycles led us through busy city streets, I kept my focus on the dolphins. Thankfully, the dolphin team included four other people who’d done this many times before. Together we monitored the dolphins’ respirations, heart rate, and demeanor. At one point, the truck screeched abruptly to a stop, and a wave of water swelled up and out of the transport boxes, all over me. Drenched, I burst into surprised laughter. I thought maybe this was like a wedding where there’s always one thing that isn’t quite perfect. I decided it was fine with me if my getting soaked turned out to be that one thing.

  At the Philadelphia airport, things went much more smoothly. We met up as planned with the other transport team from New Jersey, and I had time to check briefly on Sasha and Naia. I climbed into the back of the truck and spent a few minutes with each. Sasha, an adult female, looked a bit on the plump side. Naia, a youngster, had beautiful brown eyes. Both appeared to be doing well.

  All four dolphins were quickly loaded on the cargo plane that would fly us all to Nassau via the Mobile airport, where the other twelve dolphins had already arrived. The logistics team did a terrific job, and even though it was the middle of the night, the rendezvous went perfectly. Before long, we took off again with all sixteen dolphins on board, scheduled to arrive in Nassau at sunrise.

  —

  During the brief flight, I thought again about recent events. On one hand, these were lucky dolphins indeed. On the other hand, I felt sad for their trainers and for the many people in Mississippi who’d helped with the amazing rescue of the dolphins. It must have been very difficult for them to say good-bye. I also knew that not everyone agreed on the move—or the sale—of the animals to the resort. But it would have been years before the dolphins could live together again as a group, since their hurricane-damaged facility had to be completely rebuilt, at a time when funds and energy were desperately needed for relief of the human devastation caused by Katrina.

  Though everything had gone well so far, my stomach felt tight. I kept fiddling with the elastic band in my hair, which was tied in a ponytail to keep it from falling in my face. I wanted no distractions as I worked my way to the back of the plane, stopping to check each dolphin. Toni, an inquisitive adult female, lifted her head as if to greet me. I smiled as I patted her and whispered, “Hello.” She nestled back down into her hammock. Next I came to Kelly, who seemed to be whistling in conversation with Tamra in the carrier next to her. These were among the dolphins that had been swept out to sea, and yet they looked almost unscathed. As the plane continued to jet southward in the early morning hours, the only visible reminder of their struggle to survive was a tear in Toni’s dorsal fin.

  Reaching the back of the plane, I stopped to check on Echo and Wee Tee, resting peacefully, seemingly unfazed by the events of the day. With a flashlight, I peered down their blowholes to study the color and pattern of their mucous membranes, the characteristics of their eyes, individual markings—anything that might help me to be a better doctor to them. It would take years for me to develop the kind of relationship I’d seen in Florida between Tessie and the park staff, but this was a start.

  As we landed, the water shifted in the dolphin carriers. Miraculously, not a drop spilled. We gathered up our equipment, readied our packs, and stretched our stiff bodies. When the airplane cargo door glided open, the interior lights also went on. I squinted in the harsh gleam, trying to adjust to the fact that we’d actually arrived. Into the plane stepped members of the Department of Agriculture, along with the president of Atlantis resort. We excitedly introduced them to our precious cargo.

  I poked my head out the doorway and saw that a crowd of more than 150 people had come to welcome the dolphins at this predawn hour. The warm, moist air felt soft and comforting on my tired face. One by one, the dolphins were loaded off the plane to applause and expressions of joy. A forklift loaded the transportation units onto four flatbed trucks. As the sun rose, we went rolling down the streets of Nassau. Although it was now a busy time of morning in town, the military escorts provided by the city carried out their job perfectly. We seemed to reach our destination in no time. These sixteen new residents were obviously very special to the Bahamians!

  When we came to a stop outside the dolphins’ new home, a crane appeared and gently lifted the hammocks from the transportation units. The dolphins were carried by teams of ten people down to their new open-air holding pools, filled with beautiful blue Caribbean water. Each animal was set gently along the edge of the dock, with the pectoral fin nearest the water tucked beside its body. Someone called, “One … two … three … GO!” and the dolphins were carefully rolled out of the hammocks and into the water.

  The dolphins’ response amazed me. I’d seen these animals swimming quietly or simply resting in their various temporary homes. Here, they immediately began leaping in and out of the water, occasionally chasing small fish, rolling over one another in play. Never had I seen them so active!

  I smiled with a sense of accomplishment as I sat on the dock and watched the dolphins convene. The adrenaline that had been coursing through my body was waning and the effects of being awake for thirty-six hours were beginning to take their toll. “Welcome to your new home, beautiful dolphins,” I said.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Pamela Govett has long held an interest in ocean life and began her career researching cetacean vocalizations. She received her veterinary degree at the University of Florida, after which she completed an internship in small animal medicine and surgery at the University of Georgia. Next came a residency in zoo, wildlife, and aquatic animal medicine at North Carolina State University, followed by a position as interim associate veterinarian at the New England Aquarium in Boston. She served as head veterinarian at Atlantis resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas, where she looked after not only dolphins, but sea turtles, sharks, rays, fish, and birds. Dr. Govett is currently an assistant professor at Western University College of Veterinary Medicine in Pomona, California.

  IV

  PUZZLES AND MYSTERIES

  Despite their years of special training, zoo vets are acutely aware of what they don’t know. Most of us keep a library of textbooks and subscribe to reference material on the Internet on topics ranging from domestic and wild animal medicine to emerging infectious diseases and human pediatrics. We also publish what we learn from clinical practice and applied research, adding to the growing annals of zoological animal medicine. When strange cases arise, as they often do, we call our colleagues and other experts for ideas.

  Solving medical problems in any species is analogous to putting together a difficult puzzle without all the pieces. Though the reference literature grows by the year, zoo vets confronted by a mystery often must rely on hunches backed up by personal experience, ingenuity, and patience.

  The animal’s clinical signs are important clues. Some injuries are obvious, like a bleeding wound or broken leg. But trauma to muscles or internal organs may not be evident from a distance,
or even in the animal’s overall behavior. And nervous animals can often override pain. An anxious impala may run on a sore foot as if nothing were wrong. Signs of illness can be equally obscure. A wolf with a liver problem and a history of vomiting may keep its food down at one meal, but not the next. Sometimes it’s what an animal doesn’t do that gives cause for worry. A chimpanzee known for his feisty behavior is not feeling 100 percent if he misses an opportunity to spit a mouthful of water at the vet.

  As the basis for interpreting an animal’s behavior as abnormal, zoo vets also need to know the biology of the species concerned. The animal’s natural history—its preferred habitat and diet, its reproductive cycle—influences how well it takes medicine or tolerates anesthesia and hospitalization. Certain species, especially nervous or social ones like birds, hoofed animals, and primates, can develop entirely new problems associated with the stress of treatment.

  Once we’ve done a hands-on physical exam and run various laboratory tests, we check our results against previously established baseline data for that species. Sometimes that information may turn out not to be very useful. For example, published normal results for a complete blood count, or CBC, in a golden monkey might be based on a handful of animals, some living in captivity, others free-living. With such a small sample size, it’s impossible to distinguish subtle differences between the results for individuals of different ages and sex. Some variation may be entirely normal. By contrast, baseline data for these tests in humans and domestic animals is widely available and based on huge sample sizes.

  With the data gathered, we try to put the pieces of the puzzle together. We can usually pinpoint the problem to a particular body system. As in any species, there are only so many: cardiac, respiratory, digestive, nervous, immune, reproductive, urinary, and musculoskeletal. But certain diseases, like cancer and nutritional imbalances, affect the whole animal.