A year ago, a South African rhino survived a horrific attack by poachers who hacked off her horns and part of her face. This month, the rhino dubbed Hope is undergoing new facial reconstruction to reduce the wound over her exposed sinus cavities.
Wildlife veterinarians have fixed medical elastic bands across the rhino’s wound and will assess the results next week. The bands are meant to act like shoelaces, stretching skin on both sides closer together. The equipment, designed for human patients with abdominal wounds, was provided by Canadian company Southmedic through its South African distributor, Surgitech.
“We’re confident in the way that it works with human skin, and hoping that the same reaction will happen with the rhino skin,” Genna Woodrow, a Southmedic manager, said in a telephone interview from the company’s headquarters in Barrie, Ontario.
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