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- An Alaska brown bear has a new shiny smile after getting a huge metal crown for a canine tooth</p>
<p>June 26, 2025 at 3:10 AM</p>
<p>1 / 4Zoo Bear New ToothIn this image provided by the Lake Superior Zoo, Tundra, a 6-year old Alaskan brown bear, under goes a procedure for a new metal canine tooth, Monday June 23, 2025, at the zoo in Duluth, Minn. (Lake Superior Zoo via AP)</p>
<p>DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — An Alaska brown bear at the Lake Superior Zoo in northeastern Minnesota has a gleaming new silver-colored canine tooth in a first-of-its-kind procedure for a bear.</p>
<p>The 800-pound (360-kilogram) Tundra was put under sedation Monday and fitted with a new crown — the largest dental crown ever created, according to the zoo.</p>
<p>"He's got a little glint in his smile now," zoo marketing manager Caroline Routley said Wednesday.</p>
<p>The hour-long procedure was done by Dr. Grace Brown, a board-certified veterinary dentist who helped perform a root canal on the same tooth two years ago. When Tundra reinjured the tooth, the decision was made to give him a new, stronger crown. The titanium alloy crown, made by Creature Crowns of Post Falls, Idaho, was created for Tundra from a wax caste of the tooth.</p>
<p>Brown plans to publish a paper on the procedure in the Journal of Veterinary Dentistry later this year.</p>
<p>"This is the largest crown ever created in the world," she said. "It has to be published."</p>
<p>Tundra and his sibling, Banks, have been at the Duluth zoo since they were 3 months old, after their mother was killed.</p>
<p>Tundra is now 6 years old and, at his full height on his hind legs, stands about 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall. The sheer size of the bear required a member of the zoo's trained armed response team to be present in the room — a gun within arm's reach — in case the animal awoke during the procedure, Routley said. But the procedure went without a hitch, and Tundra is now back in his habitat, behaving and eating normally.</p>
<p>Other veterinary teams have not always been as lucky. In 2009, a zoo veterinarian at Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Omaha, Nebraska, suffered severe injuries to his arm while performing a routine medical exam on a 200-pound (90 kilogram) Malaysian tiger.</p>
<p>The tiger was coming out of sedation when the vet inadvertently brushed its whiskers, causing the tiger to reflexively bite down on the vet's forearm.</p>
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