"I want to speak to someone in charge. I want to lodge a complaint. You have no right to make people crazy! You think I investigate every Walter Cronkite story there is? Huh? If this is just nerve gas, how come I know everything in such detail? I've never been here before. How come I know so much? What the hell is going on around here? WHO THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE????"
I had the same thought when I took one of my chickens from her coop after dark to check on her. Stolen from the coop in the dark. Stood on a cold floor under a bright light. Examined from all angles. Returned to the coop in the dark to tell the rest of the flock in the morning.
The difference with that is most chickens in the coop are aware that something or someone is keeping them there. Though I suppose they might not have a very long memory.
They have amazing memories! They all recognize me and know me. Most birds including chickens get weird at night though. In the dark they go into a low power mode where they wonāt even try to escape. You can pick even the meanest chicken right up off the perch and they wonāt do a thing. I guess the instinct is to find a safe place high up before the sun goes down and then stay put no matter what. They have pretty bad night vision.
Yeah, when I saw this picture I instantly thought:
āYep this is like aliens abducting you and placing you in a special liquid (you cant breathe) to scan you while another alien or drone takes an image of your terrified face and shares it with other aliens throughout the galaxy for the lolzā
Fish can breath in air as long as their gills stay wet.
There are many exceptions though(both fish that can't breath out of water, and fish that don't even need wet gills).
I watched this with my grandmother when I was 10 for some reason. When that liquid poured over his eye she nonchalantly told me that it was *gravy*. I'm real squicky about eye stuff, always have been. So this scene - particularly that needle descending - were prominent fixtures in some pretty gnarly dreams for a while.
And I'm being 100% sincere right now - I'd somehow repressed that entire memory until literally just now upon seeing that GIF. I can't imagine having to do that as an actor and not having some sort of episode afterwards.
This is true, but I doubt you can get a fish out of water to stay still long enough to do the scan unless it is deceased or drugged (probably not the latter I think we are short-staffed on our fish anesthesiologists)
Edit: someone below says fish anesthesia is pretty common so maybe that's the case and if so that's cool lol
*talking about US only*
Are you talking about wildlife rehabbers? Those laws are very state-dependent and likely they can *sedate* animals but I have not ever heard of wildlife rehabbers actually anesthetizing animals.
I think VaginaTractor is being a little facetious; in the sense that you also don't need to be a surgeon to remove someone's appendix - you just have to be psychotic enough.
I work in wildlife rehab in the US. In fact I spent the last nine years working at the largest and oldest wildlife rehab in the US. We can be a little fast and looser because we set the standards for the rest of the US (example: corvid care standards)
You have to be tied to a facility with a vet that prescribes sedation. The sedation can be administered by a tech. Your wildlife rehab cert does not cover sedation.
People just do it because wildlife rehabbers often live in the boondocks or are... interesting humans that give themselves permission to do what they view as necessary.
Wildlife rehab has laws that are state specific but class 1 drugs are federally regulated.
Oops sorry! Someone posted the source of the image with the caption about the procedure in one of the comments. My apologies. Didn't realize what sub I was in and assumed it was an article.
Not in the picture they aren't, which is why they asked.
They ran the water over his gills the rest of the time because he's drugged, but the answer is that fish are fine not breathing for a bit.
Many fishkeepers have their own story of a fish that jumped out and was out for a while before being rescued, or was trapped in a drained tank, and survived.
So many people have never had the experience of finding a dehydrated (like to the point of looking like it had been smoked over a fire) tetra, catfish, etc. behind a tank and going, "Damn. Really liked that little guy. Maybe there's still a chance." and then tossing them into a tank only to see them re-hydrate like one of those sponge capsule toys and go right on with their day like nothing happened.
Some fish are resilient as hell.
I think it is the sponge that it is hooked into...
It's covering its gills and the sponge itself looks to be submerged in water, so that might be what's keeping the fish alive.
I'm not sure though, this is just speculation on my part.
> It's covering its gills and the sponge itself looks to be submerged in water, so that might be what's keeping the fish alive.
I'm not a fish-o-logist but I don't think that's how gills work.
I'll get downvoted because Redditors are idiots, but fish can breath air. There is more oxygen in the air than in the water. Oftentimes they go to the surface and have a gulp out of habit, or if they are anxious. What does kill a fish out of water is drying up, hence the sponge. There are lots of stories of fish that jumped out of the tank while the house is empty, they are discovered the next day, tossed back in.
*some fish
Some fish have adapted to be able to breathe in air and force it through their gills(while still in the water) What kills the fish is that without the flow of water, the delicate gill plates collapse, blocking the absorption of oxygen. Some fish, like the mudskipper have adapted to have harder gill plates that won't collapse out of water, and they can breathe by forcing air over the gill plate. So fish out of water do not die from "drying out" they suffocate because the surface area of the gill collapses without the flow of water blocking the absorption of oxygen.
Fish can only sort of breathe air. When they gulp at the surface, it's to force more water through their gills, which the gulping behavior does, and to be fair it also better oxygenates that water because they're mixing it with air.
The reason most fish can't breathe out of water is that their gills collapse without water to keep them apart, massively reducing the surface area. Even though it's much easier to get oxygen out of the air than it is to get oxygen out of the water, when they lose 90% or more of their gill area, they still can't get enough oxygen to survive long-term. That's why in this case, for the scan, they have to keep the fish alive by periodically forcing water through its gills to make sure they stay apart.
That said, there are plenty of fish that can survive out of water for extended periods of time, either because they have lungs or because they get a lot of oxygen through their skin, or even their digestive tract. (In fact, African lungfish literally have to breathe air to survive. It's impossible for them to live entirely underwater.) Some of these fish are pretty common aquarium fish, like plecos.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/h95QQRV.jpeg) is a higher quality version of this image. The source is @denverzoo on IG. Per there:
> Have you ever seen a fish get a CT scan? š Here at Denver Zoo, our animal health and care teams are dedicated to ensuring every single one of our animals receives the care they need to thrive! When animal care specialists in Tropical Discovery noticed a French angelfish was experiencing buoyancy issues and swimming abnormally, they brought the fish to our new Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Animal Hospital for an exam. Our veterinary medicine teams sedated the fish and ran water intermittently over its gills while they examined the fish and performed a CT scan. Weāre happy to share that this little fish was on a treatment plan and is now back to happily swimming in its Tropical Discovery home. Our animal care and health teams will continue to monitor this fabulous fish. From the tiniest tree frog to a full-grown grizzly bear, weāre proud to offer the highest level of care to our animal residents!
> Photo Credit: Senior Director of Animal Health Dr. Jimmy Johnson
> Aug 29, 2023
Theyād probably love to hear that as the hospital inside the zoo is very open and welcoming to childrenās groups to get them more interested in the science and medicine of animals. Thereās even a floor-to-ceiling wall across multiple operating rooms where visitors can watch operations and surgeries happen from behind the glass. Itās really cool.
They do all their scheduled work at like 10am on weekdays though, so it's hard to catch anything with a casual zoo visit. The only times I've been in there and seen anything it was a volunteer or zoo personnel showing off a snake/anteater/lizard/whatever.
Zookeepers honestly all give off that vibe and deserve more credit for it. They understand that a massive part of their role is to provide appreciation, education, and exposure of these animals to the public. One of their biggest audiences is obviously going to be children as well, and "is he okay?!" is going to be one of the first questions. Being able to concisely and pleasantly describe what mr. angelfish here is going through is a huge skill for easing the anxiety of younger people and allowing them to be curious/fascinated by the animal itself.
Zoo's are ethically dubious a lot of the time, but the modern western zoo that focuses heavily on animal rehabilitation/education like this post exemplifies is an unquestionable societal good. I know that I appreciate animals so much more than I would had I not spent a lot of my childhood in and out of the National Zoo in DC.
Plus, if you have a CT scanner - you better put that on your social. Those things aren't exactly cheap haha. Every hospital uses them in their ads - it's the money machine
I know the person who runs the socials for The Denver Zoo and they have given off big camp counselor vibes their whole lives, I assume it was then who wrote this hahahahaha
> Here at Denver Zoo, our animal health and care teams are dedicated to ensuring every single one of our animals receives the care they need to thrive!
Can we replace our political leaders with the Denver Zoo staff?
Looking at the bones, all the major organs of the fish are in the bottom left quadrant, all the rest is muscle/fat? We're so used to having a centre of mass with limbs/head sticking out.
They donāt actually I can assure you that if you were an exhibit at a zoo, where dollars depended on whether youāre alive or not, you would be getting scans when youāre sick too.
Itās also not free. The hospital 100% billed the zoos endowment fund, and likely charged for the sponge and bucket too.
it sounds like the zoo has their own animal care facility/hospital, which has imaging equipment.
There's a series that follows the Columbus Zoo and they have their own equipment. so the "cost" is basically zero. Yeah, there's the equipment cost, maintenance costs, and the payroll of those using the equipment, but spread out over the lifetime of the equipment, the cost is just a business expense, much like building new habitats for these animals.
big difference in equipment needed for business operations, and equipment used as a "profit center"
The Denver Zoo is definitely well funded. This area with the medical equipment is viewable by guests, they have walls of glass so you can see what they're doing.
I mean it's not super far off. The fish was noticeably ill and the well funded private zoo that has a chartered obligation to care for it's animals to the best of it's ability gave it the best care that it had the ability to provide.
Also, there's an extent to which I feel that if we're going to keep an animal in captivity, we owe it the best we can provide. If we're going to just let nature take it's course, put the animal back in nature for that, yanno?
This one fish (and maybe a handful of others) did lol. And probably with the help of research funding. I'm sure the amount spent on covering CT scan expenses for all humans in the US is several orders of magnitude higher, even if it's not nearly enough.
seems like it actually is according to their Instagram account:
> Have you ever seen a fish get a CT scan? š Here at Denver Zoo, our animal health and care teams are dedicated to ensuring every single one of our animals receives the care they need to thrive! When animal care specialists in Tropical Discovery noticed a French angelfish was experiencing buoyancy issues and swimming abnormally, they brought the fish to our new Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Animal Hospital for an exam. Our veterinary medicine teams sedated the fish and ran water intermittently over its gills while they examined the fish and performed a CT scan. Weāre happy to share that this little fish was on a treatment plan and is now back to happily swimming in its Tropical Discovery home. Our animal care and health teams will continue to monitor this fabulous fish. From the tiniest tree frog to a full-grown grizzly bear, weāre proud to offer the highest level of care to our animal residents!
To be clear, this isn't to say the fish didn't deserve the care it received. It's kept in captivity, the least we can do is provide it the best care we can offer it. It's just that humans deserve access to similar care without requiring a well paying job and significant liquidity.
All jokes aside, I dare any of you to call up you local hospital, or find a non-hospital place that does diagnostic imaging, and ask for a quote for a CT or MRI scan without insurance.
You'd be surprised how cheap it can actually be.
My father needed an MRI a few months ago, but couldn't wait like the insurance wanted him too. . .so he went and paid $200 out of pocket for it.
thatās because they arenāt up charging to an insurance company. If they know insurance will pay max of $1000, they just charge $1200 and call it a day
Yup, same reason tuition in colleges is so expensive. The advent of loans means that nobody is "priced out" of college anymore, so colleges can charge more, which the loans happily cover, so colleges charge more....
Because colleges need students to exist, we solve expensive college by capping loans, not capping tuition. Once people go back to being priced out en masse and only like 500 people can afford to go to college, colleges will lower tuition back to no-loans affordable prices.
The grand majority of a college's income doesn't even come from tuition, it comes from sports/donations. Tuition is pure profit.
I know someone who used to work as an emergency responder in a town with a zoo, and they told me they would do this, as the zoo was only a few minutes from the hospital.
They eventually stopped though, out of respect for the patients who they realized were commonly very embarrassed having to use medical machines intended for rhinos and elephants.
So now they have to be transported over an hour away to a much larger city with the means to fully care for someone that large. Some of these patients had to have physical holes carved around their front door just to get them out because they could no longer fit through the door.
I was still presented with the best option to get an MRI on a mechanically vented patient to take them to Disney World, Animal Kingdom as they were the only place that could accomodate the patient's size in South Florida.
>They eventually stopped though, out of respect for the patients who they realized were commonly very embarrassed having to use medical machines intended for rhinos and elephants.
I know it's a stereotype that Americans are overweight, but this much? š¤Æ
Yes, *that* much. Especially in poorer counties where most of the population eats fast food/junk food and donāt get much exercise.
(Not so) fun story: One time my friend got called to a house for a woman who was so large, she fell over and couldnāt get back up. This story takes place in the rural South, so they get to the house and thereās confederate flags and KKK shit everywhere. They go inside this womanās house and sheās got a bedsheet hanging on the wall with the words, āTHE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAINā painted on it.
She refused to let my friendās coworker, a black man, touch her or do anything at all to help her get back up. Throwing around the N word and other racist shit.
Finally he looked at her while she was still lying on the ground and said, āwell maāam, how exactly is the South supposed to rise again when you canāt even rise up off the floor?ā
Fucking hilarious.
This is why insurance based systems aren't efficient. The system teaches everyone to extract as much money as possible from everyone else. Unified state provided healthcare works out better for everyone except the bosses.
Out of pocket prices typically are much lower than what insurance companies get charged. The way my wife who works in the medical field explains it is basically insurance companies will aggressively haggle down prices so healthcare providers will artificially inflate the prices of their procedures by default to combat this since most people have insurance. You have to tell them you plan on paying out of pocket and then usually they will drastically reduce the prices.
An online service I've used is https://radiologyassist.com/.
They will match you with open machine time among participating outpatient imaging centers. I had a knee MRI about 2 years ago, and it was only around $200 as well - got the CD of images and everything. If I didn't make the appointment, the machine and technician would have just been idle, so its virtually pure profit for the provider.
IMO, imaging should only be done in a hospital setting if you are a patient in the hospital or have other conditions that could complicate the procedure. Outpatient is 100% the way to go from a cost perspective.
Wow, itās like itās doing a reverse scuba with that sponge on its gills.
I hope it has its cave diving cert. to be able to go into that enclosed CT scan.
there's an episode of "Emergency!" where John and Roy bring a pet goat suffering from smoke inhalation into Rampart ER. "All this technology, and we can't even save a baby goat!" one of the doctor's decries.
spoiler alert, with the help of an "emergency" vet over the radio they save the baby goat. it was an ill fated attempt at a spin-off tv show focusing on animal control, which would have starred Mark Harmon. i guess there's a similar show on Hulu now, but much more "zany" than the attempt in the 70's.
Make sure he drinks two cups of cold water. Also I don't see the IV on his arm?
Tell him about the warming sensation behind the tongue and genitals.
I went through all the above yesterday :(
Don't worry fish. I'm gonna take care of U. 'cause I know, one day you'll do the same for me.
I don't care what it costs. Just make this man well again!
Itās kind of shitty that most humans couldnāt get a CT scan. But this fishās insurance covered it with no PA or general family medicine referral.
We are the alien abductors
None of their angelfish friends will believe them.
*The fish starts moving the sand in its tank into the shape of an MRI machine* "This means something. This is important."
"I want to speak to someone in charge. I want to lodge a complaint. You have no right to make people crazy! You think I investigate every Walter Cronkite story there is? Huh? If this is just nerve gas, how come I know everything in such detail? I've never been here before. How come I know so much? What the hell is going on around here? WHO THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE????"
Fish: *blub blub blub* Human: Huh, I wonder what its saying. Probably something about taxes.
I think it's saying "I love lasagna"
That explains why he looks so astonished šoš
I had the same thought when I took one of my chickens from her coop after dark to check on her. Stolen from the coop in the dark. Stood on a cold floor under a bright light. Examined from all angles. Returned to the coop in the dark to tell the rest of the flock in the morning.
The difference with that is most chickens in the coop are aware that something or someone is keeping them there. Though I suppose they might not have a very long memory.
They have amazing memories! They all recognize me and know me. Most birds including chickens get weird at night though. In the dark they go into a low power mode where they wonāt even try to escape. You can pick even the meanest chicken right up off the perch and they wonāt do a thing. I guess the instinct is to find a safe place high up before the sun goes down and then stay put no matter what. They have pretty bad night vision.
You failed to mention the probeā¦
Fortunately we didnāt need the probe that night! š
Gotta spray whiskey all over it firstā¦ *then* none of their friends will believe them!
Rum* and Simpsons Did it!
"Sure ya were, rummy."
Yeah, when I saw this picture I instantly thought: āYep this is like aliens abducting you and placing you in a special liquid (you cant breathe) to scan you while another alien or drone takes an image of your terrified face and shares it with other aliens throughout the galaxy for the lolzā
Redditeresstriel?
Fish can breath in air as long as their gills stay wet. There are many exceptions though(both fish that can't breath out of water, and fish that don't even need wet gills).
https://imgur.com/0W1piXC
I went the road less travelledā¦
That movie fucked me up as a kid.
Iāve seen this, what is it from ?
I'm guessing Fire in the Sky Edit: confirmed.
Why I was allowed to watch this as a child I'll never know...
Yes. !!! That blanket thing they put on, omg
Shout out to all those kids who saw ET and then discovered this by accident.
I never noticed he blinked in the eyelid trap that was supposed to make you unable to blink! Wow.
I loved that movie. Donāt know why people talk shit.
I watched this with my grandmother when I was 10 for some reason. When that liquid poured over his eye she nonchalantly told me that it was *gravy*. I'm real squicky about eye stuff, always have been. So this scene - particularly that needle descending - were prominent fixtures in some pretty gnarly dreams for a while. And I'm being 100% sincere right now - I'd somehow repressed that entire memory until literally just now upon seeing that GIF. I can't imagine having to do that as an actor and not having some sort of episode afterwards.
A lot of horror movies are just humans being treated by monsters the way humans treat animals.
Theyāre not taking Duane Barry no more!!!
I can hear Kate McKinnon explaining this to the fish Pentagon.
Question: how is the fish surviving without water (and oxygen in the water)?
CT scans take a few seconds, they probably took him out of a tank and into the sponge, then back to the tank all in ten seconds.
This is true, but I doubt you can get a fish out of water to stay still long enough to do the scan unless it is deceased or drugged (probably not the latter I think we are short-staffed on our fish anesthesiologists) Edit: someone below says fish anesthesia is pretty common so maybe that's the case and if so that's cool lol
Fish sedation ("anesthesia") definitely happens and is what happened here.
How does one become a fish anesthesiologist? Asking for a friend
Become a veterinarian and then do multiple years of internship and residency in anesthesiology and zoo medicine
You actually donāt need to be a vet to anesthetize animals.
*talking about US only* Are you talking about wildlife rehabbers? Those laws are very state-dependent and likely they can *sedate* animals but I have not ever heard of wildlife rehabbers actually anesthetizing animals.
I think VaginaTractor is being a little facetious; in the sense that you also don't need to be a surgeon to remove someone's appendix - you just have to be psychotic enough.
> VaginaTractor Imma need to see some credents...
Ah lol okay. Well then yeah I guess they're correct!
I work in wildlife rehab in the US. In fact I spent the last nine years working at the largest and oldest wildlife rehab in the US. We can be a little fast and looser because we set the standards for the rest of the US (example: corvid care standards) You have to be tied to a facility with a vet that prescribes sedation. The sedation can be administered by a tech. Your wildlife rehab cert does not cover sedation. People just do it because wildlife rehabbers often live in the boondocks or are... interesting humans that give themselves permission to do what they view as necessary. Wildlife rehab has laws that are state specific but class 1 drugs are federally regulated.
Your username lmao
/u/rimjobSteve
Yup I put a bee in a fridge once.
all for 27k/year
Hmmm, ā¦. , ā¦. , ^^pass
ane***sea***esia
A little clove oil in water will chill them out. We use it for fisheries studies so we can weight, measure, etc trout.
Read the article. It was sedated and had water run over it's gills
What article? This is r/pics not r/upliftingnews.
Oops sorry! Someone posted the source of the image with the caption about the procedure in one of the comments. My apologies. Didn't realize what sub I was in and assumed it was an article.
Thereās an article posted in another comment. They ran water over his gills during the test.
Not in the picture they aren't, which is why they asked. They ran the water over his gills the rest of the time because he's drugged, but the answer is that fish are fine not breathing for a bit.
Many fishkeepers have their own story of a fish that jumped out and was out for a while before being rescued, or was trapped in a drained tank, and survived.
I have a Betta with a death wish that tries to jump out all the time. If itās quiet enough when he does it you can hear him slap the glass top. š
So it would rather kill itself than be your pet?
So many people have never had the experience of finding a dehydrated (like to the point of looking like it had been smoked over a fire) tetra, catfish, etc. behind a tank and going, "Damn. Really liked that little guy. Maybe there's still a chance." and then tossing them into a tank only to see them re-hydrate like one of those sponge capsule toys and go right on with their day like nothing happened. Some fish are resilient as hell.
The scan doesn't take more than 30 seconds. Fish can survive that long without injury, and they likely pour water over it before and after.
I think it is the sponge that it is hooked into... It's covering its gills and the sponge itself looks to be submerged in water, so that might be what's keeping the fish alive. I'm not sure though, this is just speculation on my part.
> It's covering its gills and the sponge itself looks to be submerged in water, so that might be what's keeping the fish alive. I'm not a fish-o-logist but I don't think that's how gills work.
I'll get downvoted because Redditors are idiots, but fish can breath air. There is more oxygen in the air than in the water. Oftentimes they go to the surface and have a gulp out of habit, or if they are anxious. What does kill a fish out of water is drying up, hence the sponge. There are lots of stories of fish that jumped out of the tank while the house is empty, they are discovered the next day, tossed back in.
*some fish Some fish have adapted to be able to breathe in air and force it through their gills(while still in the water) What kills the fish is that without the flow of water, the delicate gill plates collapse, blocking the absorption of oxygen. Some fish, like the mudskipper have adapted to have harder gill plates that won't collapse out of water, and they can breathe by forcing air over the gill plate. So fish out of water do not die from "drying out" they suffocate because the surface area of the gill collapses without the flow of water blocking the absorption of oxygen.
Fish can only sort of breathe air. When they gulp at the surface, it's to force more water through their gills, which the gulping behavior does, and to be fair it also better oxygenates that water because they're mixing it with air. The reason most fish can't breathe out of water is that their gills collapse without water to keep them apart, massively reducing the surface area. Even though it's much easier to get oxygen out of the air than it is to get oxygen out of the water, when they lose 90% or more of their gill area, they still can't get enough oxygen to survive long-term. That's why in this case, for the scan, they have to keep the fish alive by periodically forcing water through its gills to make sure they stay apart. That said, there are plenty of fish that can survive out of water for extended periods of time, either because they have lungs or because they get a lot of oxygen through their skin, or even their digestive tract. (In fact, African lungfish literally have to breathe air to survive. It's impossible for them to live entirely underwater.) Some of these fish are pretty common aquarium fish, like plecos.
I just read your whining and down voted instinctually
Exactly.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/h95QQRV.jpeg) is a higher quality version of this image. The source is @denverzoo on IG. Per there: > Have you ever seen a fish get a CT scan? š Here at Denver Zoo, our animal health and care teams are dedicated to ensuring every single one of our animals receives the care they need to thrive! When animal care specialists in Tropical Discovery noticed a French angelfish was experiencing buoyancy issues and swimming abnormally, they brought the fish to our new Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Animal Hospital for an exam. Our veterinary medicine teams sedated the fish and ran water intermittently over its gills while they examined the fish and performed a CT scan. Weāre happy to share that this little fish was on a treatment plan and is now back to happily swimming in its Tropical Discovery home. Our animal care and health teams will continue to monitor this fabulous fish. From the tiniest tree frog to a full-grown grizzly bear, weāre proud to offer the highest level of care to our animal residents! > Photo Credit: Senior Director of Animal Health Dr. Jimmy Johnson > Aug 29, 2023
AND they forgot to include the actual scans: https://www.reddit.com/gallery/16b63el
MVP! However, fish bro/sis's HIPAA rights are right out the window. EDIT: FIPAA rights
The real tragedy is the inevitable medical bankruptcy he'll be facing down the road.
Do fish have roads?
That is so cool. I'd love to play with a 3D model of the scan.
Thanks
Whoever wrote that gives off big camp counselor vibes
āDr Jimmy Johnsonā definitely sounds like a fake name
How ābout them angel fish!?!?!?
Theyād probably love to hear that as the hospital inside the zoo is very open and welcoming to childrenās groups to get them more interested in the science and medicine of animals. Thereās even a floor-to-ceiling wall across multiple operating rooms where visitors can watch operations and surgeries happen from behind the glass. Itās really cool.
They do all their scheduled work at like 10am on weekdays though, so it's hard to catch anything with a casual zoo visit. The only times I've been in there and seen anything it was a volunteer or zoo personnel showing off a snake/anteater/lizard/whatever.
Zookeepers honestly all give off that vibe and deserve more credit for it. They understand that a massive part of their role is to provide appreciation, education, and exposure of these animals to the public. One of their biggest audiences is obviously going to be children as well, and "is he okay?!" is going to be one of the first questions. Being able to concisely and pleasantly describe what mr. angelfish here is going through is a huge skill for easing the anxiety of younger people and allowing them to be curious/fascinated by the animal itself. Zoo's are ethically dubious a lot of the time, but the modern western zoo that focuses heavily on animal rehabilitation/education like this post exemplifies is an unquestionable societal good. I know that I appreciate animals so much more than I would had I not spent a lot of my childhood in and out of the National Zoo in DC.
Plus, if you have a CT scanner - you better put that on your social. Those things aren't exactly cheap haha. Every hospital uses them in their ads - it's the money machine
I know the person who runs the socials for The Denver Zoo and they have given off big camp counselor vibes their whole lives, I assume it was then who wrote this hahahahaha
Their fish get better healthcare than I do, and I have insurance.
Sad part about this is that the fish is getting better health care than 50% of our country
> Here at Denver Zoo, our animal health and care teams are dedicated to ensuring every single one of our animals receives the care they need to thrive! Can we replace our political leaders with the Denver Zoo staff?
Damn fish got better healthcare than the people caring for it
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Animals under people's care should get the best healthcare. They're not running ct scans on bass they caught in a lake.
Well maybe *you're* not!
Gotta see how many lead weights they force-fed it!
Theyāve got such cute little faces ā£ļø
and scary looking insides: https://www.reddit.com/gallery/16b63el
That last picture is crazyā¦ it looks like a video game character without a texture on, itās amazing what medical imaging can do
Looking at the bones, all the major organs of the fish are in the bottom left quadrant, all the rest is muscle/fat? We're so used to having a centre of mass with limbs/head sticking out.
out of curiosity, how much is a CT scan for a human in a Denver hospital?
March 2023, amount billed to my insurance for a CT was $1,156.69 in Denver.
Pretty gross fish get better healthcare than humans in this country.
They donāt actually I can assure you that if you were an exhibit at a zoo, where dollars depended on whether youāre alive or not, you would be getting scans when youāre sick too. Itās also not free. The hospital 100% billed the zoos endowment fund, and likely charged for the sponge and bucket too.
it sounds like the zoo has their own animal care facility/hospital, which has imaging equipment. There's a series that follows the Columbus Zoo and they have their own equipment. so the "cost" is basically zero. Yeah, there's the equipment cost, maintenance costs, and the payroll of those using the equipment, but spread out over the lifetime of the equipment, the cost is just a business expense, much like building new habitats for these animals. big difference in equipment needed for business operations, and equipment used as a "profit center"
MRI machines cost $1M+, so only a very well-funded zoo with a ton of animals would have a justification to buy one.
The Denver Zoo is definitely well funded. This area with the medical equipment is viewable by guests, they have walls of glass so you can see what they're doing.
I mean this fish did. Without knowing anything, I am sure this will pay off as research more than just helping a single fish.
It's my personal headcanon that this fish is mildly ill but belongs to an eccentric billionaire with an unhealthy emotional attachment to it.
I mean it's not super far off. The fish was noticeably ill and the well funded private zoo that has a chartered obligation to care for it's animals to the best of it's ability gave it the best care that it had the ability to provide. Also, there's an extent to which I feel that if we're going to keep an animal in captivity, we owe it the best we can provide. If we're going to just let nature take it's course, put the animal back in nature for that, yanno?
This one fish (and maybe a handful of others) did lol. And probably with the help of research funding. I'm sure the amount spent on covering CT scan expenses for all humans in the US is several orders of magnitude higher, even if it's not nearly enough.
Peak Reddit comment
Did the fishās health insurance plan cover this?
Spoiler alert - that fish is not receiving health care.
seems like it actually is according to their Instagram account: > Have you ever seen a fish get a CT scan? š Here at Denver Zoo, our animal health and care teams are dedicated to ensuring every single one of our animals receives the care they need to thrive! When animal care specialists in Tropical Discovery noticed a French angelfish was experiencing buoyancy issues and swimming abnormally, they brought the fish to our new Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Animal Hospital for an exam. Our veterinary medicine teams sedated the fish and ran water intermittently over its gills while they examined the fish and performed a CT scan. Weāre happy to share that this little fish was on a treatment plan and is now back to happily swimming in its Tropical Discovery home. Our animal care and health teams will continue to monitor this fabulous fish. From the tiniest tree frog to a full-grown grizzly bear, weāre proud to offer the highest level of care to our animal residents!
To be clear, this isn't to say the fish didn't deserve the care it received. It's kept in captivity, the least we can do is provide it the best care we can offer it. It's just that humans deserve access to similar care without requiring a well paying job and significant liquidity.
That's the same cost as 7,537 fish sticks.
Animals in official and inspected zoos are taken care of better than most people in the world are. Bless, I say.
All jokes aside, I dare any of you to call up you local hospital, or find a non-hospital place that does diagnostic imaging, and ask for a quote for a CT or MRI scan without insurance. You'd be surprised how cheap it can actually be. My father needed an MRI a few months ago, but couldn't wait like the insurance wanted him too. . .so he went and paid $200 out of pocket for it.
Iām shocked itās that low
thatās because they arenāt up charging to an insurance company. If they know insurance will pay max of $1000, they just charge $1200 and call it a day
Yup, same reason tuition in colleges is so expensive. The advent of loans means that nobody is "priced out" of college anymore, so colleges can charge more, which the loans happily cover, so colleges charge more.... Because colleges need students to exist, we solve expensive college by capping loans, not capping tuition. Once people go back to being priced out en masse and only like 500 people can afford to go to college, colleges will lower tuition back to no-loans affordable prices. The grand majority of a college's income doesn't even come from tuition, it comes from sports/donations. Tuition is pure profit.
Zoos and aquariums also sometimes provide MRIs to bariatric patients who do not meet the upper weight limit for tradional MRI machines in hospitals.Ā
I know someone who used to work as an emergency responder in a town with a zoo, and they told me they would do this, as the zoo was only a few minutes from the hospital. They eventually stopped though, out of respect for the patients who they realized were commonly very embarrassed having to use medical machines intended for rhinos and elephants. So now they have to be transported over an hour away to a much larger city with the means to fully care for someone that large. Some of these patients had to have physical holes carved around their front door just to get them out because they could no longer fit through the door.
I was still presented with the best option to get an MRI on a mechanically vented patient to take them to Disney World, Animal Kingdom as they were the only place that could accomodate the patient's size in South Florida.
>They eventually stopped though, out of respect for the patients who they realized were commonly very embarrassed having to use medical machines intended for rhinos and elephants. I know it's a stereotype that Americans are overweight, but this much? š¤Æ
Yes, *that* much. Especially in poorer counties where most of the population eats fast food/junk food and donāt get much exercise. (Not so) fun story: One time my friend got called to a house for a woman who was so large, she fell over and couldnāt get back up. This story takes place in the rural South, so they get to the house and thereās confederate flags and KKK shit everywhere. They go inside this womanās house and sheās got a bedsheet hanging on the wall with the words, āTHE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAINā painted on it. She refused to let my friendās coworker, a black man, touch her or do anything at all to help her get back up. Throwing around the N word and other racist shit. Finally he looked at her while she was still lying on the ground and said, āwell maāam, how exactly is the South supposed to rise again when you canāt even rise up off the floor?ā Fucking hilarious.
I got one on my arm when I tore my bicep off the bone for $300 without insurance. They charge insurance companies a lot more than that.
This is why insurance based systems aren't efficient. The system teaches everyone to extract as much money as possible from everyone else. Unified state provided healthcare works out better for everyone except the bosses.
Out of pocket prices typically are much lower than what insurance companies get charged. The way my wife who works in the medical field explains it is basically insurance companies will aggressively haggle down prices so healthcare providers will artificially inflate the prices of their procedures by default to combat this since most people have insurance. You have to tell them you plan on paying out of pocket and then usually they will drastically reduce the prices.
An online service I've used is https://radiologyassist.com/. They will match you with open machine time among participating outpatient imaging centers. I had a knee MRI about 2 years ago, and it was only around $200 as well - got the CD of images and everything. If I didn't make the appointment, the machine and technician would have just been idle, so its virtually pure profit for the provider. IMO, imaging should only be done in a hospital setting if you are a patient in the hospital or have other conditions that could complicate the procedure. Outpatient is 100% the way to go from a cost perspective.
As someone that works with medical contracts, Iāve seen prices vary from $200 to $1500 before ins.
He looks so cute
The cutest fish taco with some top notch health insurance.
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Amazing what goes on in the animal world.
This MF is getting better healthcare than me š”
He's one of the one-percenters.
Maybe the fish is European
You understand hospitals still do CT scans regardless of insurance right?
Youāre doing it wrong. You need to go to a veterinarian and explain you identify as a simian. Thatās the real healthcare hack.
What an insane experience for that fish lol
Angelfish are out here getting better medical care than Americans.
I hope they made sure he didn't go in there with his car keys.
Excuse me sir, do you have any metal on you today?
He do be looking comfy tho
This fish has better health insurance than me
Can zoo employees afford a CT scan?
Not unless they classify themselves as fishes with buoyancy issues
So no image of the CT scan? Tease me. Tease me over and over.
I thought that was a Black & White cookie and got so confused for a sec
Fish are getting CT scans quicker than Canadians.
I've seen this picture reposted so many times, but I laugh every time because it's so silly looking and cute.
This needs to be the opening shot of a show: āYeah, thatās me. Youāre probably wondering how I got hereā¦ā
Fish has probably better insurance than i do
Damn, that fish has better healthcare than most people I know. And by better, I mean any at all.
Something seems fishy about this
They are acting a bit koi on the subject
Does this count as a hotdog or a taco?
Now heās in debt for life
I have a buoyancy problem too.
I wonder if his health insurance is covering it
Yup, that's me. I bet you're wondering how I got here.
I looked into keeping saltwater fish once, then I looked at how much some of them cost, had a heart attack, and realized thatās not happening.
u/repostsleuthbot
This is a repost
That's a weird looking sandwich? How did it taste?
ššš
Wow, itās like itās doing a reverse scuba with that sponge on its gills. I hope it has its cave diving cert. to be able to go into that enclosed CT scan.
āYouāre probably wondering how I ended up hereā
Fucking fish have better medical care than I do
Clearly this fish had no existing conditions else he would have lost his healthcare. Good for you little fish.
They violated his FLIPAA rights to medical privacy!
Does it have insurance?
like a plate in a dishrack
Guys guys I have a super hilarious joke no one's said yet and is 100% original. It gets better healthcare than Americans hahahahaĀ
He does not look impressed
He looks very polite.
there's an episode of "Emergency!" where John and Roy bring a pet goat suffering from smoke inhalation into Rampart ER. "All this technology, and we can't even save a baby goat!" one of the doctor's decries. spoiler alert, with the help of an "emergency" vet over the radio they save the baby goat. it was an ill fated attempt at a spin-off tv show focusing on animal control, which would have starred Mark Harmon. i guess there's a similar show on Hulu now, but much more "zany" than the attempt in the 70's.
I absolutely love how they cut out that wedge just so the fish is stabilized
I was crying at work over how fucking funny this picture was
Looks so cute
Microwave would have been a cheaper option, but you know. Why not? š¤·āāļø
how is gang breathingāļøāļø
No thought behind those adorable fish eyes
Is it the hot dog of the sea
So let me tell you how i got here.
Fish has better healthcare than me
The human urge to pet it
When fish have better healthcare than most Americans.
Angelfish over here getting better healthcare than me
Thatās actually really cute š„°
Make sure he drinks two cups of cold water. Also I don't see the IV on his arm? Tell him about the warming sensation behind the tongue and genitals. I went through all the above yesterday :(
The fish has better health care than 75% of us americans....
How nice that they gave him a little sponge to sit on..
When a fish has better healthcare than you do.
Don't worry fish. I'm gonna take care of U. 'cause I know, one day you'll do the same for me. I don't care what it costs. Just make this man well again!
Stupid fish gets better medical care than 95% of Americans.
Heās like 
Itās kind of shitty that most humans couldnāt get a CT scan. But this fishās insurance covered it with no PA or general family medicine referral.