UNITED KINGDOM: Bristol Zoo female gorilla undergoes pioneering cataract surgery to restore eyesight

Record ID: 336513

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Bristol Zoo female gorilla undergoes pioneering cataract surgery to restore eyesight
  • Date: 25th October 2002
  • Summary: (L!1) BRISTOL, UNITED KINGDOM (OCTOBER 25, 2002) (REUTERS) SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) SHARON REDROBE, VETERINARIAN, BRISTOL ZOO, SAYING "The operation was reasonably difficult, it hasn't been done much in the world at all, certainly never in Europe, so I had to spend many months gathering as much information as possible and then being as careful as we could we had availabl
  • Embargoed: 9th November 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BRISTOL, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Environment,Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA2OZLEQAO2P4H3H82A6LEV9WDP
  • Story Text: Surgeons in Bristol have given a gorilla a key to new life at the age of 22. Romina - one of two female gorillas at Bristol Zoo has undergone two pioneering cataract operations to restore her sight in both eyes. The operations have been the first of their kind in Europe on an adult gorilla.
    When it's feeding time at Bristol Zoo, gorilla lady Romina is right there to pick up her share. Just like her fellow gorilla mates, Romina gets her daily supply of vegetables from head keeper Melanie Gage. Nothing unusual to the zoo's visitors, but for those who know Romina, they remember a time when things weren't always this way for the 22 year-old primate.
    Romina was born with congenital cataracts - cloudy lenses - in both eyes, which left her almost blind, with only minimal peripheral vision.
    She was unable to see the food that was thrown and couldn't see her way around the compound. Her inability to see isolated Romina from her fellow gorilla companions and she was altogether withdrawn and quiet.
    Her keeper Melanie Gage remembers: "She had her index finger and she'd use it like a blind person would probably use a stick, she was patting her way around to feel it or she'd bash the floor with the back of her hand and then she'd come across her food that way. She wouldn't go outside much because the brighter the light the less she could see, so she stayed inside and was quite withdrawn really."
    That's when staff at Bristol Zoo decided on a pioneering operation to save Romina's sight. Earlier this year, she became the first adult gorilla in Europe to have one of her cataracts removed and replaced with a silicon lens. It was an operation that hadn't been done before, and although the risks involved were that Romina could remain totally blind, staff at Bristol Zoo decided to go ahead with the operation.
    "The operation was reasonably difficult, it hasn't been done much in the world at all, certainly never in Europe, so I had to spend many months gathering as much information as possible and then being as careful as we could we had available a few different techniques that we could have used when we actually got on to the surgery but it went very well,"
    says veterinarian Sharon Redrobe.
    The operation consisted in cutting into Romina's eyes to remove the cataracts and place a lens into her eyes so that she could see properly. The second operation on her second eye was completed successfully just a few weeks ago and Romina can now see clearly through both eyes for the first time in her life.
    "As soon as we turn off the anaesthetic she starts to wake up so we didn't do that until we got her back safely into the crate that we use to transport her and then she wakes up in sort of five to ten minutes, really quite quickly and it was apparent that she could see much better so it was fantastic to see her looking around and recognizing things and people," says Redrobe.
    Having had her sight restored, has done a lot for Romina's confidence her keeper Melanie says: "She's a completely different animal, she's very confident, if you see her out on the island, you can see her actually looking around for food if you throw a piece of food she sees where it lands and she'll go to it, you just wouldn't get that before - she'd hear it and she wouldn't know what to do."
    As Romina is now enjoying her new sight, vets at Bristol Zoo are hoping she will be able to breed successfully with her 18-year-old potential mate Bongo - but that's a prospect Romina is not so interested in just yet.
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