A sore tooth was making life harder for Fluff, and his keepers say that has now changed.
The 27-year-old European brown bear, who weighs more than 200kg, underwent more than five hours of dental treatment to remove a damaged tooth at the Wildwood Trust’s centre in Kent.
Fluff was put under general anaesthetic for the procedure. Specialist dentist Gerhard Putter assessed him, carried out x-rays and removed the bad tooth.
The Wildwood Trust said Fluff has recovered well since the surgery and is now playing again with the other bears.
Wildwood’s head of bears Jon Forde said the treatment appears to have improved Fluff’s quality of life.
“There’s a saying about being like a bear with a sore head – it feels like we’ve just removed the sore head,” he said.
“Since the procedure we’ve seen Fluff and Scruff playing together in the dens again, which is something we haven’t seen for a long time.
“The dens are usually somewhere they tolerate each other rather than somewhere they choose to play, so seeing them messing around together was really encouraging.
“It’s still early days and we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but all the signs so far suggest the treatment has made a real difference.”
Fluff and his brother Scruff were rescued from an abandoned breeding facility in Bulgaria by the Wildwood Trust in 2014. They now live at the charity’s centre in Kent with a younger bear, Boki.
The trust said Fluff and Scruff spent the first 15 years of their lives in tiny concrete pits at a Bulgarian facility, where the animals were kept to be shot for sport.
After a fundraising campaign backed by Wildwood supporters, the bears travelled more than 1,600 miles to Kent to start new lives.
The trust said the pair still live with the long-term effects of the neglect and poor nutrition they experienced before being rescued, and that ongoing veterinary care remains an important part of their long-term welfare.
Wildwood said the rehabilitation of Fluff and Scruff helped establish the charity as a leading centre for brown bear rescue and rehabilitation. It has since provided sanctuary and specialist care for other rescued bears from across Europe.
Boki arrived at Wildwood in 2022 after being rejected by his mother and hand-reared by keepers. He underwent brain surgery as a cub and later recovered, the trust said.
Read more from BBC News.
