Special Report: El Paso Zoo caring for geriatric animals

Life is good for animals at the zoo. They eat, sleep and play with no worries in the world.

In the wild, they are usually exposed to predators and dangerous diseases, but at the El Paso Zoo they are safe from both. “Obviously, zoos are not a completely natural situation,” said veterinarian Victoria Milne.

Take, for instance, two lion-tailed macaques: Little 50 and Twiggy. Their natural lifespan is 20 years. They are between 30 and 35 years old.

Milne and fellow veterinarian Misty Garcia perform the macaques’ yearly exams.

“These girls are very geriatric so they are at least a 90- to a 100-year-old human. They are well up there,” Milne said.

Prolonging animals’ lives means they live longer with conditions they may not necessarily have in their natural habitat.

“We do see diabetes in animals and that surprises people. There are diseases that animals get that we don’t get, but there are a lot of things that are shared,” Milne said.

Treating a monkey for diabetes can be a task.

“The keepers are not able to get a blood sample from her every day but they can get urine, so Little 50 will go to a certain area and urinate and the keepers can check the glucose and ketones in the urine,” Milne said.

Veterinarians use some familiar tools, like X-rays and ultrasound, Milne told ABC-7. “We’re looking at the arthritis in her knees,” she said, “We deal with more tumors and cancer in older animals.”

The macaques also get a dental check. It’s not just about keeping their teeth in good condition so they can eat.

“Problems with your teeth can lead to problems systemically. Infections can spread, that chronic inflammation can be damaging for organs in your body,” Milne said.

Beyond special high-protein diets to maintain their muscle mass, veterinarians also try nontraditional treatments.

“We’ve done laser therapy, we’ve done hydrotherapy it just depends on that animal and that species temperament to training and responsiveness to training and how much we can teach them to tolerate,” Milne said.

Over the past weeks, ABC-7 has taken you into the operating room as a tiger gets a root canal and we’ve shown you how zookeepers train animals to accept medical procedures without sedation. You can still watch those reports by clicking here.