Heart disease is a leading killer of humans, so it should not be that big a surprise that it is also the leading killer of great apes. Just as we have worked to improve human heart health, the Great Ape Heart Project is making similar strides among great apes.
The Great Ape Heart Project is based at the Detroit Zoo but is, in fact, a large-scale, collaborative effort across multiple institutions that brings special expertise to improve the cardiac care of great apes.
Great apes include gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, and bonobos. The project recently gave two bonobos at the Columbus Zoo special attention.
“Bonobos are one of the most endangered great ape species,” said Dr. Priya Bapodra, the senior veterinarian at the Columbus Zoo. “Not many people know about bonobos because not many ape facilities in the U.S. are home to bonobos.”
There are no bonobos at the Detroit Zoo, but the experience of the Great Ape Heart Project is helping the Columbus Zoo bonobos. Two of the male bonobos at the Columbus Zoo have documented cardiovascular disease with high blood pressure and thickened heart muscle, and they are also both on cardiac medications.
“These two were phenomenal candidates to be the first-ever bonobos in the world to receive these implants,” Bapodra said.
The implants Bapodra is referring to are called loop recorders. Dr. Ann Duncan, the director of animal health at the Detroit Zoo, said, “We put a very small implant underneath the skin in the area of the heart, and we get data from the implant for up to or over three years.”
These are actually the same devices used in humans. In fact, human medical advances are actually helping the great apes.
“One of the cool things about this project is a lot of times people hear about animals and medicine and think it’s us testing on them,” said Dr. Marietta Danforth of the Great Ape Heart Project. “It’s actually almost the opposite. Most of the stuff that we do has been FDA-cleared for human use before it would be used on an endangered animal.”
The data from the implanted loop recorders in the Columbus Zoo bonobos are periodically read with a device that is held over the chest of the bonobo. That data is wirelessly gathered and sent electronically to cardiologists in Detroit.
“There’s a huge amount of information that we are going to get from these loop recorders, and that will help the global population but also our animals here at the zoo, Bapodra said.