Pretoria - Onderstepoort veterinary staff had their hands full yesterday dealing with a one-ton elephant suffering from toothache which arrived for root canal treatment.

The elephant was one of 30 young Tuli elephants captured by Brits game dealer Riccardo Ghiazza last February and which were the centre of an international controversy over allegations of animal abuse.

According to Mr Ghiazza, the elephant - called Kelly - had fractured her tusk when she was captured in Botswana, but had until recently not been tame enough to receive medical treatment.

"Tame enough" or not, Kelly was still a handful and he had to hire a crane to unload the animal and its crate off his truck.

According to Dr "Gerhard", South Africa's only full-time animal dentist, the broken tusk had resulted in the exposure of the tooth's "pulp", which consists of nerves and blood vessels. Kelly had started packing dirt into the wound because of the chronic irritation, increasing the risk that the infection could spread.

Yesterday Dr Gerhard removed the rotten part of the pulp and gave the elephant an extra-large filling.

- Argus Correspondent