{"id":203091,"date":"2025-10-10T16:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T16:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/203091\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T16:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T16:42:11","slug":"boki-the-bear-gets-mice-cake-to-celebrate-brain-surgery-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/203091\/","title":{"rendered":"Boki the bear gets mice cake to celebrate brain surgery milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joshua Askew, Bob Dale & Claudia SermbezisSouth East<\/p>\n

\"BBC\/ClaudiaBBC\/Claudia Sermbezis<\/p>\n

Boki was the first brown bear to ever undergo brain surgery, said keepers<\/p>\n

A wildlife park is marking one year since one of its bears underwent pioneering, life-saving brain surgery.<\/p>\n

Boki went under the knife in October 2024 at Wildwood Trust in Kent to treat hydrocephalus, a build-up of fluid on the brain that causes seizures.<\/p>\n

The three-year-old brown bear was fitted with a stent to drain the fluid during the five-hour operation.<\/p>\n

He was presented on Thursday with a cake – made of sweet potato, nuts, seeds and mice – to mark the anniversary.<\/p>\n

Boki “quite likes his mice”, said Jon Forde, head of bears at Wildwood Trust. <\/p>\n

He added that keepers had to make the cake themselves as there are “no bear bakeries around”. <\/p>\n

\"BBC\/ClaudiaBBC\/Claudia Sermbezis<\/p>\n

Boki had a rough start in life, said keepers<\/p>\n

Boki was the first brown bear ever to be diagnosed with hydrocephalus and undergo brain surgery, according to Mr Forde. <\/p>\n

He called the operation a success, with the three-year-old now climbing trees, going swimming and playing with his bear mates, Fluff and Scruff. <\/p>\n

In the next few days, Boki will enter torpor and sleep until spring. <\/p>\n

“He pretty much won’t eat till March next year,” added Wildwood director general, Paul Whitfield.<\/p>\n

\"Harding-LeeHarding-Lee Media<\/p>\n

Boki’s operation took around five hours<\/p>\n

Boki’s family was rescued from a Spanish circus. <\/p>\n

He was born in captivity at Port Lympne Reserve in Kent in 2022, but had to be moved to Wildwood and hand-reared by keepers after his mother rejected him. <\/p>\n

Boki would be unable to survive in the wild, despite keepers having taught him key bear behaviours. <\/p>\n

“He’s had a rough first three years of his life but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him,” said Mr Forde. <\/p>\n

“Everything just bounces off him. He’s just the most happy bear.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joshua Askew, Bob Dale & Claudia SermbezisSouth East BBC\/Claudia Sermbezis Boki was the first brown bear to ever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-203091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}