As we turned to head back to the car we realized a crowd was gathering, obviously aware that something unusual was happening. Accustomed to such a scenario, Tony was quick to address them as we slipped away.
‘One of the snow leopards has got a problem with her leg, so the vets are here to examine her, but I’m afraid I need to ask you all to move away so we don’t unduly stress her.’
Disappointed but understanding murmurs followed his announcement. Since it was in the animal’s best interest, they would be happy to oblige. A few parents simplified the explanation to their inquisitive and disappointed children as they slowly moved away.
‘What’s the plan?’ I asked Dave as we headed back to the car.
‘We’ll inject her with Ketamine and Medetomidine in the cage, and then get her to walk into the house before they take effect and she goes to sleep. That way we’ll be away from Sasha and out of view. We’ll intubate her and then you can do the anaesthetic while I have a thorough look at her leg. We’ll take some blood, too, while we’ve got the chance, so we can check her general health status.’
‘Sure.’ I said. Then, ‘Do I just treat her as I would a big cat?’
‘Yeah. Jaw-tone, eye-position to gauge how asleep she is, just like you would any other cat.’
Dave had pre-packed a box with everything he thought we’d need. Opening it now, and rechecking the items, we talked through the procedure step by step, happy we hadn’t forgotten anything. I then lugged out the anaesthetic machine from the back seat, and we headed back to the snow leopard enclosure.
We had been gone maybe ten minutes. In that time, Tony had cordoned off the area from the public and Jason was just coaxing a protesting Amira down the walkway into the built-in trap. We carried the equipment round the corner of the enclosure to the door of the housed enclosure, which Tony now confirmed would be where we’d be carrying out the procedure. Dave then drew up the drug combination, after estimating her weight. We walked over to the trap where Amira was now caged. Threatened by our presence, she growled, hissed and swiped at us from her confinement with an intimidating ferocity.
‘Are you ready to inject her?’ Jason asked Dave.
‘Yeah, all set.’
‘Can you help me pull these handles, Jon? That way, we can pin her against the side of the cage for Dave to safely inject her.’
There were two handles, one at the front of the cage and one at the back, and these were connected to a sheet of wire mesh. Pulling on them temporarily constricted the area where Amira was contained, allowing Dave enough time to safely inject into her rump before she could deploy her immense strength against us.
As soon as the injection was done, we released the handles, and Jason then opened the front shutter of the cage, allowing Amira access to her indoor pen. A combination of displeasure and fear made her rapidly vanish down the run and into her house, where Jason then shut her in. The first phase of the procedure had been successfully achieved. We now had to let the drugs take effect, trusting that Dave’s calculations had been correct.
‘How long should it take for her to go to sleep, Dave?’ Tony whispered, conscious of the need for quiet.
‘About five to ten minutes.’
A small window ran along the top wall of the building. It was fairly opaque with dust, but through it we were just able to make out Amira within her barred pen. Initially she prowled around the enclosure, growling as she went, but gradually as the drugs took effect, she lay down, head swaying from side to side. Eight minutes after the injection she slumped onto her side, completely unconscious. We sprang into action, opening the door into the housed area and carrying in our equipment.
Before opening Amira’s cage, Jason gently prodded her with a stick to confirm she was asleep. She didn’t flinch. The cage door swung inwards and so it gently pushed Amira out of the way – another good test of how asleep she was. Loading her onto the stretcher, we then carried her into the alleyway, her head towards the door. Dave gently opened her mouth to check her jaw-tone: the action stimulated her tongue to unfurl and then curl up, a normal reflex, but no less intimidating. Her inch-long canines gleamed at us.
‘We need to intubate her, but I’ve brought a gag to use. If she inadvertently closes her mouth, those teeth will crush through a human hand effortlessly,’ Dave warned me. It was an alarming thought. ‘Can you see the gag in the box with the endotracheal tubes?’
I located a small block of wood covered in Vetrap, then found an endotracheal (ET) tube and the laryngoscope. Tying a strip of the bandage material around her upper jaw, Dave held up her head and opened her mouth. I gently placed the gag between her upper and lower molars until it caught, and then, happy I wouldn’t lose any fingers if she clamped down, pulled out her tongue and used the laryngoscope to visualize the vocal folds, between which I gently inserted the ET tube. Removing the laryngoscope, we used the Vetrap to secure the ET tube to Amira’s upper jaw, before, with an airway now secured, connecting up the anaesthetic machine. While Dave and Jason then positioned Amira on her back so they could examine her wound, I used my stethoscope to assess her heart rate (108), then her respiratory rate (26). The values felt right for her size, but it was the pattern that was important. Dave had packed an anaesthetic chart, which I started filling in, monitoring her parameters every five minutes. If everything stayed roughly the same, then all was good; any sudden changes and I would need to respond. Next, I put some lubricating gel on her eyes to keep them moist, thus compensating for the lack of tear production during her anaesthesia.
‘How does she seem?’ Dave said, turning to me.
I gave him the figures. ‘She seems pretty stable.’
‘Good. What flow rate have you got her on?’ The flow rate is the concentration of vaporized anaesthetic agent that is added to the oxygen and delivered to the patient.
‘Two and a half per cent.’
‘Fine. Well, just keep a close eye on her, particularly when I start examining her wound. It’s a bit cramped in here, so if she suddenly wakes up, we’re in trouble.’
With four of us in the alleyway, plus Amira and all the equipment, there was indeed very little room to move. Furthermore, the door only opened inwards and the anaesthetic machine and I were blocking that escape route. As I looked at her curled lips, and those large gleaming canines, and her dinner-plate-sized paws with inch-long claws, I suddenly felt very exposed and vulnerable. She certainly seemed to be asleep, but any sudden pain stimulus and she might react. Nervously I checked her jaw-tone and blink-reflex, and decided to turn the vaporizer flow rate up to 3 per cent.
‘Are you happy with her, Jon? I’m going to start examining this wound. I’m not sure how painful this could be, so be prepared.’
‘She seems very stable,’ I confirmed.
Dave abducted her left front leg away from her body, revealing a mat of bloody dried fur surrounding a large puncture wound. The wound was still weeping and the exposed flesh was purulent and inflamed.
‘It’s pretty nasty. I wonder how she did it. Let’s clip and clean it, and go from there.’ He started clipping away at the dense matted fur around the wound. Amira didn’t flinch. I rechecked her parameters: heart rate 120, respiration 24. She was reacting slightly to the stimulation, but there was still no blink-reflex or jaw-tone. I was happy with that. Dave continued slowly and methodically around the area, then took a litre bag of sterile saline, inserted a needle, and then used this to flush and clean the wound. As he continued his work, I found myself mesmerized by the beauty of the creature before me. I took in the soft, thick, dense, smoky-grey and straw-yellow fur of her coat, dotted with the black open rosettes across her body and the smaller black spots across her face and legs. Her velvety smooth tail, as long as her body, the large supple paws with their springy pads that allowed for such silent movement yet contained such deadly razor sharp claws. Her small ears that minimized heat loss, but nonetheless allowed for such acute hearing; the thirty-two teeth that could crush through bone, or tear through flesh, with such effortless ease; and the usually alert, attentive eyes that now lay concealed, behind her third eyelids.