By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune

A male Amur leopard was among the first animals to receive surgery at a new veterinary hospital Saturday at Utah's Hogle Zoo. The rare feline, named Vladamere, received a root canal to treat a broken canine tooth.

The surgical room was busy with an exotic animal dentist, several Hogle vets, a team of medical assistants, the zoo's photo-snapping director and a shotgun-toting zookeeper -- the latter a just-in-case precaution against the dangerous cat. But in the spacious new operating room, there was plenty of room to spare.

"It's wonderful," said Hogle's chief veterinarian, Nancy Carpenter. "With that many people in there, we'd all be bumping into each other in the old room."

The operating room at the zoo's old hospital was so cramped that veterinarians sometimes had to crawl over and under bulky pieces of surgical equipment to get from one side of the operating table to the other. That made providing surgical care to larger animals very difficult. Now they expect to be able to perform surgery on beasts up to 2,000 pounds.

The new hospital -- part of a slew of improvements aimed at improving animal care at the state's largest animal park --was funded in part by the ALSAM Foundation, a charitable organization sponsored by the clinic's namesake, drugstore magnate L.S. Skaggs.

Zoo officials say the clinic has the space to accommodate the growth anticipated as the zoo adds new animals and exhibits as part of its master plan. That plan received a boost from Salt Lake County voters in 2008 with the approval of a $33 million bond for zoo improvements, paving the way for a new exhibit featuring polar bears, seals and other Arctic wildlife.

Vladamere's operation was supported by the use of a handheld X-ray machine called the NOMAD, a product of Orem-based Aribex, Inc. Even though there is plenty of room for more-traditional X-ray equipment now, Carpenter said the flexibility and detailed scans provided by the gun-shaped Nomad greatly aided the operation.

Photos, from top: Vladamere, an Amur leopard at the Hogle Zoo. Dr. John Huff III operates on the leopard. Dr. Huff uses a NOMAD Handheld X-ray to diagnose the leopard's canine. Dr. Huff shows the leopard's broken tooth. Photo credits: Scott Sommerdorf / Salt Lake Tribune)