White Lioness Spookie is 'Okay' after Heart Op. (5 October, 1996)

A 4-month-old white lion cub which underwent a 'delicate' heart operation in the city yesterday is doing well, but veterinarians will only know in about ten days if she will survive. Spookie, the rare white lioness cub, has been at the centre of media attention since vets at the Onderstepoort veterinary Academic Hospital announced that they would be performing the procedure - a world first - earlier this week.

She is one of only eight white lions in South Africa and was bred by Albert Mostert and his wife Trudie on their Hoedspruit farm as part of a programme aimed at tourism. Although Spookie survived the anaesthetic and complex four-hour operation, it is difficult to predict her recovery, vets said. Surgeon Dr Jeremy Goldin, who performed the operation, said: 'We will know within the next ten days whether there will be a more favourable prognosis.'

Vets at the centre had already diagnosed Spookie as suffering from a rare condition, called persistent right aortic arch, but once they started the procedure they realised the situation was worse than anticipated. The lioness' aorta - the main artery leaving the heart - had developed on the right instead of the left side of her heart and the subclavian artery, which leads off the aorta, had wound round her oesophagus. The resulting constriction of the oesophagus meant that foodstuff could not reach the cub's stomach and was regurgitated. Some of the food was also inhaled, ending up in her lungs. 'The more chronic the condition becomes the more constricted the oesophagus becomes,' Dr Goldin said, adding it was a rare condition.

Spookie is the second white lion bred successfully by the Mosterts over the past five years, but a veterinary student at the faculty who has studied white lions extensively said he would not recommend that the lioness be used for breeding purposes because the condition is hereditary. By Lynne Altenroxel. Courtesy of the Pretoria News.