The extraordinary images of animals burned in the Pantanal treated with tilapia skin | Marshland

It looks like a futuristic scene: a giant anteater, with its thick brown fur, spreads its legs patterned with … tilapia skin.

The hybrid, however, is from 2020. In the year that the Pantanal burned and several of its animals were injured and burned, researchers and veterinarians came together to help these animals through an innovative and totally Brazilian technique.

So far, one baby deer, two adult tapirs, one baby tapir, and one adult giant anteater have received tilapia skin. And an anaconda snake and a tuiuiú, the symbolic bird of the Pantanal, are in the line of treatment.

The technique, developed by researchers from the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) and the Instituto de Apoio ao Queimado (IAQ), works like this: researchers receive skins of freshwater fish, which are normally discarded by the industry, from a fish farm . The skins are then dehydrated and sterilized and stored at room temperature.

They are then applied to people or animals with burn wounds, acting as a dressing for the burned area and helping it heal.

“Tilapia skin has a very large layer of collagen, which is important in the healing process of the burn,” explains biologist Felipe Rocha, coordinator of the Ajuda Pantanal Mission and researcher of the Pele de Tilápia project.

Rocha traveled to Cuiabá, the capital of Mato Grosso, together with the veterinarian Behatriz Odebrecht and the nurse Silva Júnior, a specialist in the placement and application of dressings for tilapia skin, all from the Pele de Tilápia project.

When they saw the tragic images of the animals affected by the fire in the Pantanal, the UFC researchers contacted the NGO Ampara, which supports the rescue and rehabilitation of animals in the Pantanal.

The NGO accepted the help, and put the group in contact with the Veterinary Hospital of the Federal University of Mato Grosso, in Cuiabá, where the tilapia skins would be applied. There, the people of Ceará began to train this week, the Mato Grosso team, explaining how to apply the product on the skin of animals.

The group took 130 biological dressings from tilapia skin, which, according to their calculations, should be used for about 40 injured animals.

In Brazil, this is the first time that this technique has been used in wild animals. The UFC group had already tested the skin of the horses. He also taught veterinarians at Davis University in California how to apply the skin to bears that were injured in the 2018 American fires.

The futuristic image of the tilapia anteater is fleeting. Soon the transparent part, which is the collagen, will be incorporated into the wound. The dark part will peel off, as if it were the skin of a wound, explains Rocha. And the skin of the anteater and other animals will return to its original appearance.

The researcher explains how the treatment is carried out: “The wound is cleaned, the tilapia skin is placed and closed with gauze and a bandage on top. Tilapia skin adheres to the burn and must remain in contact for 10 to 15 days on the animal’s skin. no curative exchange, ”he says.

The conventional process would be to apply a silver sulfadiazine ointment, which is a topical healer in burn therapy, with daily dressing changes. You have to sedate the wild animals every time to do that.

“If the animal takes 15 to 20 days to heal, 15 to 20 dressings have to be done during the entire process. With tilapia skin, the cost of making these daily changes is reduced, the pain of the animal is reduced and teamwork load ”, says Rocha.

In addition, he points out, the burned animal or person loses a lot of fluid with the burn. The tilapia skin stops this process. Its dark part is like a waterproof film that prevents the loss of liquid. It also creates a barrier so that microorganisms do not proliferate in the wound.

As a result, healing is accelerated because the wound is not manipulated as much, in addition to the great help of collagen. For Rocha, it is “exciting” to see the animals recover.

The group started applying tilapia skins to the animals on Tuesday (6). The first animal to receive the bandages was a baby deer. All four legs were burned and the bandages were placed there.

Then it was the turn of two large adult tapirs and a baby tapir. One of the tapirs, says Rocha, was very sick, not feeding, listless, not getting into the water. His back was very affected. “We applied this tapir to him, and the other day he was in the water. Then he ran out and went back into the water. We didn’t see the healing process, but we saw that the animal has already reacted in terms of behavior, ”he says. “Tilapia skin reduces patient pain.”

Then a giant anteater received tilapia skin on its paws.

“On all four legs of the red deer, we don’t even use half a tilapia skin,” says Rocha. In one of the tapirs, which had a large lesion, 15 skins were used.

The anaconda, which is expected to receive tilapia skin soon, is quite burned, he says, with muscle exposure, and for that reason application should be quite a challenge. “But we think it will work.” In the tuiuiú, it is the wing that burns.

For Rocha, helping suffering animals “is a huge satisfaction.” “We were happy and excited to help out in this sad time in the country,” he says.