Rare Arizona Jaguar Gets Root Canal

March 18, 2009

The Phoenix Zoo has a new guest: Lucero, a 125-pound jaguar captured by a farmer on the Mexico-Arizona border. (ZT Pet News Photo by Peter Calderone)

Rare Arizona Jaguar Gets Root Canal: After being captured by a Mexican farmer and trying to chew his way free, a wild jaguar has taken a trip to the dentist. "We have done four root canals and removed several of his lower incisors," said a Phoenix Zoo representative.

PHOENIX -- Zoologists say he is about 4-years-old and weighs 125 pounds.

But this jaguar's light coat indicates that he's not from the jungle, but rather, the high desert of southern Arizona.

"When we think of big cats, we do automatically think of far away places, and it's nice to think of having them in our own backyard really," said Rebecca Benham, one of Lucero's trainers at the Phoenix Zoo.

Lucero was captured by a farmer on the Mexican side of the Arizona border. The farmer told authorities the cat had been preying on his livestock, so he trapped the animal and locked him in a metal cage. But when the jaguar tried to bite his way out, he ended up breaking many of his teeth.

Lucero was then transferred from Mexico to Phoenix for dental care. Chris Visser, DVM, and his son, human dentist Dr. Louis Visser, volunteered to try to fix Lucero's life-threatening damage.

"We have done four root canals and removed several of his lower incisors. The root canals were a six hour procedure, followed by another four hour procedure," said Dan Subaitis, director of animal management at the Phoenix Zoo.

"After the surgery, he got a lot more rambunctious, a lot more aggressive with the keepers, which sounds bad, but for a jaguar is good. We know he is feeling better and feeling a lot healthier," Subaitis said.

Arizona native jaguars like Lucero are rare. It is estimated that only 70 to 100 cats roam northern Mexico and since 1971, only six have been tracked in the United States.

For the past several years, the Arizona Game and Fish Department has used surveillance cameras in southern Arizona to track an older jaguar nicknamed "Macho-B."

The large cat was recently captured and euthanized because of failing kidneys, a common condition for older jaguars.

"As a result, the way it all played out, we can learn a lot more from him, and help other jaguars out in the wild," Subaitis said.

Lucero continues to draw big crowds at the Phoenix Zoo.

"He's a very easy cat to work around, he's been an absolute pleasure to have here which is nice given his background. He's a great cat," Benham said.

The jaguar is on loan from the Mexican government and will remain at the Phoenix Zoo for about another year. He will then return to Mexico and be placed with a zoo in Hermosillo, located around 100 miles south of the border. His handlers do not believe he can be returned to the wild because of the fragile state of his teeth.

Before he goes, Phoenix Zoo officials hope he will mate with an existing female jaguar at the zoo.

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