JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Thirty large mammal specialists traveled from South Africa, India and other zoos across America last week to perform the last phase of tusk removal surgery for Ali, a 34-year-old elephant at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens who was once owned by the late legendary icon Michael Jackson.
Ali's zookeepers in Jacksonville say tusk removal surgery for an elephant is similar to getting a cavity filled for a human. The zoo says they’ve been trying since 2019 to remove the infected tusk so that Ali can be more comfortable, running into issues along the way "due to the complex anatomy, large tusk size, and the anesthetic time constraints on such a large patient."
After a three and a half-hour procedure, Ali's surgery was completed. The elephant was donated to the zoo and rescued from Jackson’s 'Neverland Ranch' in 1997.
"It took an entire crew of dedicated individuals to coordinate this intricate medical procedure for our largest animal at the zoo," Assistant Curator of Mammals at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens Corey Neatrour said in a news release. "It takes a village, and we could not have had such a successful surgery without the support of so many people. Ali’s story is a reminder of the tremendous efforts we make for animals in our care."
“The doctor who removed it, he does this in the wild," added Curtis Dvorak, a spokesperson for the zoo. "So, this is something that if an elephant fractures a tusk in the wild, they sedate them just like this in the wild."
Dvorak says surgeries like this wouldn’t be possible without people coming to the zoo and donating to provide medical care for all of their animals.
Now that Ali's tusk is removed, it’s making its way to the Smithsonian to be preserved and examined for research purposes.
