Brave vet uses her Apple Watch to measure lion’s heart rate in wild video
The lion beeps tonight?
An Apple Watch a day keeps the vet away? Wildlife veterinarians redefined “cat scan” after incredibly taking a lion’s pulse using the gadget, as detailed in a video blowing up on Instagram.
“It’s a true ‘technology meets conservation’ story,” Dr. Chloe Buiting — who goes by the handle @jungle_doctor on the platform — described in the caption to the clip. She frequently shares snapshots of her game-changing conservation work on the ‘Gram.
In one of her recent clips, the animal doctor shared a video of a sedated lion having its heart rate monitored via an Apple Watch — a trick she said she learned from colleague and fellow conservation vet Dr. Fabiola Quesada.
In it, Simba can be seen splayed out on the table snoring with the device around its tongue as it measures the critter’s RPM — like something out of “Inspector Gadget” meets “Dr. Doolittle.”
“I don’t know what’s more impressive… the snore, or the discovery that the @apple Watch can measure a lion’s heart rate if you strap it to the tongue (even if it is one of the less conventional “off-label” uses for the device),” explained Buiting. “This finding is particularly handy because one of the biggest challenges of working with animals in the field is the monitoring of anesthesia without many of the regular bells and whistles you’d have in a hospital setting.”
The vet added that the feat was particularly impressive given that most heart monitors are designed for smaller animals and not the King Of The Jungle.
The animal whisperer claimed that she even employed this heart-monitoring hack with elephants by taping the Apple Watch to their ears.
“I love the strides technology is making in conservation,” added Buiting, who surmised that measuring Mufasa’s metronome “might not have been Apple’s plan for the device.”
Social media users were both impressed and amused by the Apple Watch’s interspecies application.
“I saw this too this is awesome haha thank you for sharing,” exclaimed one fan, while another wrote, “That’s genius!”
“Just waiting for the reminder to make a dentist appointment to pop up,” joked a third. “But seriously…..necessity is truly the mother of invention.”
This isn’t the first time someone has demonstrated the Swiss Army-esque versatility of the Apple Watch.
In April, a New York claimed that his wrist device saved his life by dialing 911 following a horrific bike accident that left him looking like a “monster.”