‘We Made Little Spring Rolls With Their Feet.’ These Bears Are Getting Special Treatment for Their Wildfire-Burned Paws

(SAN FRANCISCO) — Veterinarians successfully used alternative medical treatments such as acupuncture on three wild animals burned in the Southern California wildfires, although one patient — a 5-month-old mountain lion — did keep eating his fish-skin and corn-husk bandages, vets at the University of California, Davis said Wednesday. Rescuers brought two adult bears, one of them pregnant, and the young mountain lion to veterinarians with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the university after the animals were hurt in the largest wildfire in state history. They were found in the Los Padres National Forest, whose mountains stretch through badly burned areas of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. The bears had suffered third-degree burns on all their paws, said Jamie Peyton, chief of the Integrative Medicine Service at the university’s vet school. The cub also burned all four paws. California Department of Fish and Wildlife /APThis January 2018 photo shows the badly burned paw of a bear, injured in a wildfire, wrapped in fish skin – tilapia – during treatment at the University of California, Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital in Davis, Calif. Veterinarians successfully used alternative medical treatments such as acupuncture and wrapping wounds in fish skin on two bears and a mountain lion burned in the Southern California wildfires, vets at UC Davis said Wednesday, Jan. 24. Standard pain treatment is a problem for both the...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized animals APH healthytime onetime Source Type: news