Send your love to Tomas, who has just undergone major surgery. Dr Peter Caldwell has operated on Tomas to address an intestinal intussusception, where two parts of the intestine had become looped around each other, causing a blockage, and cutting off blood supply. Dr Caldwell removed 15cm/6 inches of colon (large intestine) and sewed it up.

The cause is unknown, and scans and inspection did not show any foreign objects and we are awaiting the results of cultures, to look for other causes. The prognosis for Tomas is “guarded”, and the next five days will be critical. Tomas is currently on liquidized food.

Although this is much more serious than our initial hopes when he was first taken to hospital, we are grateful for Dr Caldwell pursuing this until he found the cause of the problem during a detailed ultrasound.

Tomas was born in a circus in Guatemala and came to the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary in South Africa when we enforced the country’s ban on animals in circuses, the boys had been separated, but we managed to get them both. We provided a new home here at ADIWS for Tomas and Kimba to share, and they are inseparable. Kimba has clearly been missing Tomas and is spending a lot of time sitting by their sister Sasha in the neighbouring habitat.

Keep the boys in your thoughts and let’s hope we are re-uniting them soon.