Every so often, he wiggles free long enough to swing from the
ceiling or stick out his tongue before resuming a statue-like pose.
Orangutans aren't known for their patience, but this one, named Satu,
has been trained to let researchers at Zoo Atlanta perform
echocardiograms on him while he's awake.
It's part of a groundbreaking national project the Great Ape Heart
Project housed in Atlanta that researches heart disease in the
rust-colored apes. Heart problems are the No. 1 killer of orangutans,
gorillas and other apes living in captivity, and the disease threatens
the work researchers have done to help increase the population of the
endangered species.
"We don't really know what is causing it. Once we can understand
that, hopefully we can treat it," said Hayley Murphy, director of
veterinary services at Zoo Atlanta. "Our ultimate goal would be to
prevent it in these amazing animals, these endangered species. We're
really trying hard to get a handle on this."
Researchers have been collecting data on gorilla heart disease for
a decade, but zoos are just now starting to gather that information on
orangutans. In February, Zoo Atlanta was the first facility to perform
an awake echocardiogram on an orangutan.
Now the zoo, through the Great Ape Heart Project, is encouraging
other organizations to do awake procedures, too, and send in the data.
Healthy apes can be put under anesthesia but the drugs are dangerous for those already suffering from heart problems.The 8gb mp3 player
comes in various sizes and colors. Therefore, every runner has a
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shoe Awake procedures expand the amount of data researchers can
collect, Murphy said.
"It's really cool to be able to follow an animal from infancy to
adulthood. Nobody's ever done that," she said. "So it's going to give
us a lot of clues as to when does heart disease start? What does it
look like when it starts? Does it change over time?"
What's more, researchers hope to determine how similar apes and
humans are when it comes to cardiac disease. The hearts look the same
on an ultrasound, but that doesn't necessarily mean that disease
affects them the same way. Already, the oldest orangutan at Zoo
Atlanta, 40-year-old Alan, is taking human prescription drugs to help
arrest the spread of his heart disease. However, researchers aren't
sure how effective the drugs are because there is so little data on
what a healthy orangutan heart looks like.