Patients Still Reluctant : Zoo Vet Practices His Cageside Manner

When Dr. Mitchell Bush talks to the animals at the National Zoo, they run for cover.

“I don’t think there’s any animal in the zoo that likes me,” the zoo’s chief veterinarian says ruefully.

The same furry creatures that would have nuzzled the jovial Doctor Doolittle cringe in fright when Bush appears, even though he fought a valiant but unsuccessful round-the-clock battle recently to save the life of the zoo’s newest panda cub.

Hsing-Hsing, the zoo’s male giant panda, “knows my voice,” Bush said. But when Bush starts talking, Hsing-Hsing lumbers down to his moat and paces worriedly back and forth.

Cheeky orangutans who cadge soft drinks from zoo visitors scramble for safety when Bush shows up. The great apes, he says, can spot him in a crowd of several hundred tourists and squeeze into a blind corner in their cage, out of harm’s way.

“My colleagues ask me: ‘How can you practice if none of your patients likes you?’ ” Bush says.

Role of Villain

“I don’t relish being the villain, but that’s just a fact of life. I’ve become used to it. The reality of performing my job is that it’s not conducive to making friends with the animals.”

A friendlier cageside manner might help, Bush concedes. But let’s face it, he says. Who can blame the animals? Who would you prefer? The veterinarian with his probing fingers and hypodermic needles? Or the keeper who brings food, maid service and small talk into the cage?

“Most animals like their keepers,” Bush says.

A big, bearded bear of a Californian, Bush, 48, came to the National Zoo from the faculty of Johns Hopkins Medical School early in 1972, just before Hsing-Hsing and his panda mate, Ling-Ling, arrived from China as a gift to President Richard M. Nixon for the American people.

Over the years, Bush has presided over most of their attempts to breed successfully in captivity. Ling-Ling has lost five cubs since 1983, most of them victims of her recurring kidney or uterine infections.

Latest Cub Died

The latest cub, an unnamed male, died earlier this month after 39 hours of fighting an infection transmitted by Ling-Ling. Assisted by a dozen or more zoo veterinarians and pediatric specialists from nearby Children’s Hospital, Bush injected the premature cub with antibiotics and a serum containing Hsing-Hsing’s antibodies to bolster its fragile immune system.

The cub, which weighed only 3.1 ounces at birth, was removed from its 250-pound mother and placed in an oxygen-rich incubator. There it was fed a special formula through a tube into its stomach and cuddled by a rubber glove filled with warm water to simulate Ling-Ling’s motherly paw.

“Every effort was made to pull this cub through its illness,” said zoo director Michael Robinson.

Bush says the giant panda couple probably will be mating early next spring, and once again he will be crossing his fingers.

Meanwhile, Bush is working seven days a week treating everything from elephants and rhinos to tiny hairy-footed hamsters. “It seems like one thing after another,” he said.

Among his more memorable challenges were performing a root canal on a polar bear and playing midwife to a pregnant bongo, an African forest antelope that tips the scales at 600 pounds and requires three operating tables to lie on. “A very stressful procedure,” Bush said.

Bears Happiest

Of all his animals, Bush says the bears are his happiest patients. “Bears just seem to go on and on and on, and they never give us any problem,” he said. The most difficult to treat are giraffes, which tower 16 to 18 feet and risk injury or death when they fall to the ground under anesthesia, even with ropes erected as a safety net.