BOSTON (WHDH) - A lion at the Franklin Park Zoo may be able to save his brother’s life. Dinari and Kamaia are 14-year-old brothers. They’ve been with the zoo since 2015.
Recently, Kamaia has struggled with severe pneumonia and anemia. Last week, doctors discovered his spleen was enlarged.
Staff at the zoo say surgery is the only option.
“We’re also going to perform an abdominal exploratory surgery to determine what the underlying cause for his anemia is,” said Chris Bonar, a doctor at Zoo New England.
His brother Danari will be a critical part of it all. He donated blood that will be used during a blood transfusion on surgery day.
“We collected blood from Danari today and that procedure went very well. He was a star under anesthesia,” Bonar said. “We collected a good amount of blood so we will use that for a transfusion for Kamaia tomorrow.”
Doctors say without a familial match, finding a blood donor for Kamari would have been extremely difficult.
“Transfusion medicine is not commonly done in exotic animal medicine because of challenges of finding the right blood donor,” Bonar said.
The surgery is set for Friday, and zoo staff hope two of their favorite animals will be back on all fours very soon.
“They’re a beautiful couple of males, and they are strikingly attractive,” Bonar said, “and very charismatic animals so they’re a big hit with both the public and staff.”
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