I Treat Toothaches In Leopards. And It's Saving Kashmir's Wildlife.

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer)
File photo

By Dr. Mohsin Ali Gazi

A few years ago, I stood inside a small enclosure at Dachigam National Park, staring into the half-open mouth of a Himalayan black bear. The bear was sedated, its breathing slow but steady. Its body was battered.

The bear was rescued from the edge of a village after days of roaming, injured and starving. But the real crisis was inside its mouth.

One of its molars was infected, a deep abscess pushing against the bone. It couldn't eat. That's what had brought it here. Not the limp in its leg or the wounds on its back, but a toothache.

I'm a wildlife veterinarian, and more specifically, a wildlife dentist. It's a role few people in Kashmir know exists. But in recent years, as we've rescued more wild animals from shrinking forests and rising conflict zones, I've come to understand something simple and profound: teeth can tell stories. And sometimes, they can save lives.

Read Also Two Injured In Leopard Attack In North Kashmir's Kupwara Leopard Spotted, Captured Alive In South Kashmir's Kulgam

Most people think of dentistry as a human or maybe a pet problem. But wild animals suffer from dental diseases too-often silently, invisibly.

A leopard with a broken canine can't hunt. A deer with a misaligned jaw struggles to graze. Even bears, strong as they seem, go weak when infection sets into the gums.

Out in the wild, there are no warning signs. No limping. No howling. Just slow starvation. Or sudden aggression. Or retreat from the herd.

Many of the animals I treat are brought in too late. They've already lost weight. Their behavior is off. By the time they're sedated and we take a look, we find advanced decay: fractures, gum disease, pulp infections.

Damage that started small, maybe with a crack or a thorn, but snowballed into something deadly.

And most of it, we can't see with the naked eye. That's why, before any treatment, I begin with dental radiographs. X-rays help us see beneath the gum line, where most disease hides.

Sometimes we find root infections. Other times, tumors. In rare cases, we even detect jaw fractures caused by human traps or territorial fights.

In the field, my dental kit looks a lot like a human dentist's. There are tools for scaling, polishing, pulling, and drilling. We've fitted crowns on fractured teeth. Drained abscesses. Cleaned layers of plaque that had built up over years.

But wildlife dentistry isn't just about tools. It's about species. A porcupine's teeth are nothing like a langur's. A bear's jaw alignment won't match a leopard's. Each case is a new anatomy lesson. A new puzzle.

In one case, we treated a young male leopard from Kupwara. It had been caught in a snare, and while the leg injuries were obvious, what we didn't expect was the snapped upper canine.

The tooth had split all the way to the root. Without it, he couldn't tear meat. We cleaned the pulp, capped the damage, and monitored his healing. He made it. Months later, we released him back into the wild.

These are delicate procedures. The animals are under anesthesia, and pain management is critical. Recovery takes days, sometimes weeks. But when they eat again, when they chew without wincing, I know we did the right thing.

Having said that, Kashmir's wildlife faces immense pressure. Habitats are shrinking. Human settlements are growing. We're seeing more injuries, more rescues. In that chaos, dentistry might seem like a side issue. But I've learned it's central to survival.

Dental checks help us estimate age, which is vital for breeding programs. Certain dental patterns tell us if an animal is part of a different subspecies. Decay in a group of scavengers might point to chemical pollution. Tooth fractures in herbivores may suggest changes in diet due to climate shifts.

For critically endangered animals, like the hangul deer, even one healthy adult can tip the scale. If a dental infection takes it down, the loss is more than personal. It's a population blow.

And here's something else I've seen: animals with fixed teeth live longer. They eat better, stay stronger, and adapt more easily if they're released back. For conservation, that's gold.

But sadly, we don't have a dedicated wildlife dental unit in Kashmir. Most of the work I do is with portable equipment, field sedation, and the support of a few trained colleagues. Forest guards and keepers usually aren't trained to spot dental distress. By the time an animal reaches us, it's often in bad shape.

There's also limited awareness in the wider veterinary world. Wildlife dentistry isn't taught in depth. It's considered niche. Low priority. But that's changing. Slowly.

At our department, we're now planning to include oral exams in every routine rescue check-up. We're collaborating with academic institutions to introduce wildlife dentistry modules. It's a start.

What I hope, more than anything, is that people begin to understand the connection between an aching tooth and a dying animal. The way an infected gum can mean a missed hunt, and how that missed hunt can end a life.

So when I clean a bear's molar or x-ray a leopard's jaw, I'm not just treating pain. I'm learning. Every mouth tells a story, of age, diet, injury, behavior. It tells me what that animal eats, where it fights, what kind of environment it survives in.

In that way, the mouth becomes a window to the forest itself. It shows us what's working. And what's not.

One day, I hope we'll have a full wildlife dental care center here in Kashmir, with trained staff and high-tech imaging. Until then, I'll keep carrying my portable kit, and walking into cages where predators lie still, waiting to be helped.

• Dr. Mohsin Ali Gazi is a veterinary officer with the Department of Wildlife Protection, Kashmir. He treats rescued wild animals and is one of the region's few practicing wildlife dentists. Reach him at [email protected]

MENAFN17052025000215011059ID1109561742