When Bobbi Brink arrived at the Oklahoma ranch that had become a dumping ground for a shuttered roadside zoo’s unwanted exotic animals, she had three words:
“I was disgusted.”
The cast-off animals had been locked in dirty wire cages and left in a field on the ranch with no regular caregiver to give them food and water. Many had died, Brink says.
Only four big cats remained when the woman who founded the Lions, Tigers and Bears sanctuary in Alpine came to rescue and deliver them to new homes.
An ailing lion, that since has died, was taken in by a wildlife refuge in Arkansas, two tigers were transported to the Oakland Zoo in California and the fourth, an 8-to-10-year-old tiger named Kallie, joined the 64 animal inhabitants at Lions, Tigers and Bears in June 2022.
Kallie was off the ranch but not out of the woods. She appeared to suffer constant pain due to a poorly executed declawing surgery as a cub in Arkansas to prepare her for the petting zoo.
A nutrient-poor diet triggered metabolic bone disease in the cub that led to weak and unhealthy bone development.
Newly rescued Kallie was adapting to her far more spacious surroundings in Alpine when she injured her foreleg, or possibly refractured a previous injury. The veterinary team had to sedate her to perform radiography and decide on a course of treatment.
The news wasn’t good. Her front left leg was fractured.
“You can’t put a cast on a tiger,” Brink says. Instead, titanium plates were screwed into the bone to support it during a complicated May 6 operation that lasted 10 hours.
Only a handful of vets around the country are skilled enough to do this type of surgery on exotic cats, and Dr. Ryan Sadler is one of them.
Lions Tigers and Bears staff veterinarian Carla Bernal had discussed Kallie’s treatment with Sadler, senior veterinarian at the Oakland Zoo and a former vet at the San Diego Zoo and Zoo Safari Park.
Veterinary workers shave Kallie’s broken left front leg before surgery at VCA Animal Specialty Group in Kearny Mesa.
(Courtesy of volunteers of Lions Tigers and Bears, Bobbi Brink and Kallie’s keepers)
“The biggest issue with these types of procedures is that the animals are so heavy,” he says, “even with titanium, it’s difficult to keep them from bending or breaking the plates.”
Aftercare was a challenge. It meant keeping Kallie calm, off her feet and on pain medication.
Kallie had responded remarkably well to the surgery, and they were encouraged.
Brink announced the good news in a message and video on the Lions Tigers and Bears Facebook page.
A couple of weeks later, though, Bernal noticed swelling in the tiger’s injured leg. It was evident that the discomfort was increasing, and the tiger’s pain injections were upped to three a day.
“We all had such high hopes,” Brink says. They X-rayed her and could see the screws were dislodging and the titanium bending. Her bone wasn’t strong enough. Kallie also developed an infection that was resistant to antibiotics.
The pain made her more restless, causing her to put added weight on her fragile leg. Her keepers huddled. They had a tough decision: either put her down or remove her leg.
“It took us a couple of days to make the decision,” Brink says. Ultimately, they opted to amputate.
“We wanted to give her a chance because she tried so hard. She never gave up through all this.”
Bernal agrees. “She’s really a fighter. She has a lot of spirit. She runs up and greets us. She is very forgiving despite everything that’s happened to her. She kept up her appetite and was willing to have things done to her.” For instance, Kallie went calmly into the tiny transport cage.
Bernal praised her social personality — lots of vocalization and chuffing, a tiger’s version of purring.
Sadler, who did his medical residency at the University of Tennessee which has an exotic cat rescue refuge, previously had performed amputations on a tiger and a serval. “Both did well,” he reports. “They learn to adapt incredibly well.”
Kallie went through her second major surgery June 4.
On the first day after surgery, Kallie was walking around on three legs with minimal stumbling.
“She’s pain free, moving really well and her prognosis is really good,” Sadler says.
Finally, Kallie was returned to her the bedroom of her habitat. “Almost immediately we witnessed the return of Kallie’s true spirit,” Brink reports. “She regained her happiness, willingly took her medications and exhibited an improved appetite.”
Rescued tiger, Kallie, is back in her Lions Tigers and Bears enclosure where she is getting used to walking on three legs.
(Courtesy of volunteers of Lions Tigers and Bears, Bobbi Brink and Kallie’s keepers)
Last week she was given full access to her living area for the first time in months. First, though, it had undergone safety modifications — the addition of ramps for easy access and rails so she wouldn’t fall off. Soft, lush grass was added to cushion her feet. A video was posted to Facebook.com/lionstigersandbears.
Sadler praises Brink’s compassion for animals. “If there’s an animal in trouble, she will drop everything to help it. And she has an analytical mind so she thinks about logistics — how to transport, where they will end up, what their life will be like afterward.
“I love working with her because it’s not just about taking care of the animal for the next month but for the rest of its life.”
Friends and supporters of the nonprofit organization have been answering its pleas to help underwrite Kallie’s surgery. Sadler donated his surgical skills and time, as did many others. But, even so, the initial operation cost about $18,000. And the amputation surgery will probably total about $12,000.
A third surgery, estimated at about $10,000, is needed to spay the female tiger and another to correct the botched declawing operation which has led to embedded bone fragments and caused arthritis, especially in one of her hind legs.
Aside from being a painful procedure, it makes them walk abnormally for the rest of their lives. In humans, Sadler analogizes, “it’s like cutting off the tips of our toes, so it changes how we move.”
But, for the time being, Brink says, “we want to let her rest. She needs an anesthesia break …
“Right now, we’re just letting her be a tiger and get used to having one leg missing. She’s so happy — you can tell she doesn’t have pain.”