An Alaskan brown bear has a new shiny smile after getting a huge metal crown for a canine tooth
Jun 25, 2025, 12:10 PM | Updated: 2:00 pm
DULUTH, Minn. (AP) 鈥� An Alaskan brown bear at the Lake Superior Zoo in northeastern Minnesota has a gleaming new silver-colored canine tooth in a first-of-its-kind procedure for a bear.
The 800-pound (360-kilogram) Tundra was put under sedation Monday and fitted with a new crown 鈥� the largest dental crown ever created, according to the zoo.
鈥淗e’s got a little glint in his smile now,鈥� zoo marketing manager Caroline Routley said Wednesday.
The hour-long procedure was done by Dr. Grace Brown, a board-certified veterinary dentist who helped perform a root canal on the same tooth two years ago. When Tundra reinjured the tooth, the decision was made to give him a new, stronger crown. The titanium alloy crown, made by Creature Crowns of Post Falls, Idaho, was created for Tundra from a wax caste of the tooth.
Brown plans to publish a paper on the procedure in the Journal of Veterinary Dentistry later this year.
鈥淭his is the largest crown ever created in the world,” she said. 鈥淚t has to be published.鈥�
Tundra and his sibling, Banks, have been at the Duluth zoo since they were 3 months old, after their mother was killed.
Tundra is now 6 years old and, at his full height on his hind legs, stands about 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall. The sheer size of the bear required a member of the zoo’s trained armed response team to be present in the room 鈥� a gun within arm’s reach 鈥� in case the animal awoke during the procedure, Routley said. But the procedure went without a hitch, and Tundra is now back in his habitat, behaving and eating normally.
Other veterinary teams have not always been as lucky. In 2009, a zoo veterinarian at Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Omaha, Nebraska, suffered severe injuries to his arm while performing a routine medical exam on a 200-pound (90 kilogram) Malaysian tiger.
The tiger was coming out of sedation when the vet inadvertently brushed its whiskers, causing the tiger to reflexively bite down on the vet’s forearm.
