International medical team treats elephant at Leipzig Zoo

The young bull elephant Akito has been treated by an international team of experts at Leipzig Zoo for a broken tusk. "The operation went well and I am optimistic that we will be able to preserve the tusk," explained veterinary surgeon Gerhard Steenkamp from South Africa in a statement from the zoo. The professor is considered a "tusk dentist" and treated the three-year-old elephant together with Aleksandr Semjonov from Estonia.

The procedure reportedly took around one and a half hours and the elephant was put under anesthesia. The tusk, which was around ten to 15 centimetres in size, had to be treated down to the inner tooth capsule with blood vessels and nerves and then closed. This is to prevent inflammation and infection. According to the zoo, the gaps at the fracture site were smoothed out and the injury closed with a type of dental filling made from various materials. Akito was able to return to his herd during the course of Sunday, it said.

Tusks grow for a lifetime

"With the involvement of experts who have carried out more than 80 similar procedures worldwide, we have exhausted the corresponding possibilities of elephant dentistry for the benefit of the animal and its development," said zoo veterinarian Anja Lange-Garbotz.

Animal keepers are now documenting how the tusk continues to develop. Tusks grow for a lifetime. If the treatment is successful, Akito will have the opportunity to develop with both tusks in age-appropriate interaction with his conspecifics, they said.