Dentist Saves Starving Asian Elephant by Removing Massive 6.5-Pound Tooth

The dramatic story dates back to March 1982 at Brookfield Zoo in Illinois, where a 36-year-old Asian elephant named Babe was on the brink of death from starvation. Keepers noticed she had become a “mere shadow” of herself, losing up to 1,000 pounds overall—including 500 pounds in just the past three months. The culprit? Severe oral problems: misaligned molars preventing proper grinding of food, a condition worsened by genetics and the lack of natural abrasives in a captive diet (unlike wild elephants who wear teeth grinding tough vegetation).

These images highlight the enormous size and unique structure of elephant molars, which form a “conveyor belt” system with six sets replacing worn ones over a lifetime.

Enter Dr. Dave Fagan, a San Diego dentist specializing in large exotic animals (who entered the field “almost by mistake”), and a veterinary team led by Dr. Scott McDonald from the zoo. On March 24, 1982, they performed a high-risk procedure under anesthesia (using etorphine, a potent morphine-like drug reversible with an antidote). Fagan extracted an upper molar weighing about 6.5 pounds—described as looking “like a 5-pound sack of flour”—and repaired the lower tooth by removing a problematic spur.

The operation was a complete success. Babe was expected to recover fully, regaining her ability to eat properly and reverse her drastic weight loss. Elephant molars are enormous—often brick-sized and weighing 4–5 pounds or more—due to the need to process up to 300+ pounds of vegetation daily. In the wild, starvation from worn-out final molars is a leading natural cause of death in aging elephants (around 60–70 years), but captive care allows interventions like this to extend life.

These visuals show the sheer size of an elephant molar, comparable to the 6.5-pound one removed from Babe.

This 1982 case highlights the specialized world of zoo and wildlife dentistry, where human “doctors of teeth” like Dr. Fagan apply skills to save exotic animals. Similar procedures continue today at zoos worldwide (e.g., Smithsonian’s National Zoo or Whipsnade Zoo), often involving specialists from organizations like feasterville dentist the Colyer Institute. For Babe, the intervention turned a fatal condition into hope—proving that even for the largest land mammals, expert dental care can be life-saving!