{"id":463044,"date":"2026-03-07T18:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/463044\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T18:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:43:10","slug":"rescue-tiger-undergoes-root-canal-to-save-teeth-in-somerset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/463044\/","title":{"rendered":"Rescue tiger undergoes root canal to save teeth in Somerset"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Zoo curator Chris Wilkinson, said &#8220;specialist equipment designed for big cats&#8221; was used to perform the &#8220;equivalent of a human root canal&#8221; and the tiger was now &#8220;back on his feet and his usual self again&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">To perform the operation, six members of staff had to lift the 22-stone (142kg) anaesthetised animal on to the operating table and ensure its jaw was kept open so the team could work safely on his teeth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kertesz, who has worked on about 300 cats, drilled 3in (7.6cm) into the teeth and removed any decayed pulp before filling the cavities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Of course, the size is enormous. While your tooth might have a 10mm root, in this case it&#8217;s about 80mm,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zoo curator Chris Wilkinson, said &#8220;specialist equipment designed for big cats&#8221; was used to perform the &#8220;equivalent of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-463044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}