TulsaPets Magazine May 2021

May/June 2021 • TulsaPets 13 how big she is! She doesn’t look like a baby anymore!’” Backues said. “That’s kind of fun to watch them grow up, from a little tiny chimpanzee to cute little baby to full grown.” Backues was reluctant to choose one ani- mal as her favorite to work with, saying she likes them all for different reasons. “Birds are amazingly tough animals, and they often don’t let you know that they’re ill until they are very ill so that can be a little frustrating, but I am amazed at how tough and resilient they are. A lot of people don’t give birds the benefit of the doubt for having personality, but they really do. “The flamingos are actually quite endearing whereas the elephants, of course, are very intelligent and (have) long-term memory, and they have a lot of personality and are quite stubborn because they are just as smart as their caretakers.” Backues said that, often, zoo animals will reach an advanced age that would not be seen in the wild because of predators, habitat loss, poaching, preventable disease or injury. “It’s amazing how long these animals live if they are well cared for in general,” Backues remarked. “We have flamingos here that we think are over 60 years old. We still have a couple of the original flamingos that came here in the 1960s. And people walk by, and you can’t tell. They don’t get wrinkles; they all look the same.” While Backues said she tries to make sure 90% of her practice is preventative, unexpect- ed situations occur, just as with any domestic pet you might have at home. “There are things that always pop up—one of the children’s zoo goats is limping, that sort of thing,” Backues said. “We do things that suddenly crop up versus a routine schedule of preventative things, and it keeps us pretty busy.” Just over a decade ago, two male lions were born at the zoo. As a juvenile, one of them broke the very tip of his fang and had to have a root canal in order to save the tooth from cracking, Backues recalled. “We had a veterinary dental specialist come Dr. Backues performing an oral exam on Kalu the lion.