Platinum is being used by a team of tiger dentists in Russia to help the animals return to the wild following attacks by poachers.

Tigers wounded in attacks by poachers often suffer injuries to their face, including the loss of teeth, which makes it very difficult for them to attack their prey and eat.

Left alone, the tiger would naturally die from starvation, but the Daily Mail reports that carers from the Utyos Wild Animal Refuge, near Khabarovsk in Russia, are helping to get the animals back into the wild by using platinum to rebuild their teeth.

By giving the tigers what are, effectively, platinum dentures, the dentists are allowing the animals to eventually return to the wild, something which is important as numbers of wild tigers continue to dwindle due to the attacks from poachers.

Those at the animal refuge are keen to return as many tigers to the Siberian forests as possible and the platinum dentures enables them to do this, because the robust nature of the metal means it will not get worn down as easily as other metals, so the tigers should only ever require the one set of dentures.

Eduard Kruglov, who heads the Utyos Wild Animal Refuge, explains: "If the tiger has lost a canine tooth and can't make a kill, we sometimes call in the local dentist to make a false one, and we have had great success with this."


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