Igor, a 250kg brown bear being kept in a wildlife park near the German capital Berlin, has had a visit from the dentist to deal with a grizzly case of tooth decay.
Several volunteers had to be called in at the Johannismuehle wildlife park near the town of Baruth in the state of Brandenburg to help move the anaesthetised 21-year-old bear so that dentists could operate on his teeth.
During the procedure, Igor lay on his back with his limbs outstretched.
His long tongue hung from his mouth as the dental surgeons worked on his inflamed root canals.
A second brown bear was also expected to have dental surgery once Igor’s operation was completed, park director Julian Dorsch said.
Dorsch said a specialist ursine dentist from Hamburg and experts from the Leibniz Institute for Zoological and Wildlife Research in Berlin had set up a makeshift operating theatre in the park for the procedure.
The surgeons used similar dental tools to those used for human dentistry, only larger.
Dorsch said bears in the wild also suffer from tooth decay.
Igor gets his teeth checked under anaesthesia.
