Goodyear Helps Doctor Two-Ton Rhino with Sore Feet
BUFFALO, N.Y., June 4 -- Sore feet create discomfort, but imagine you're a 4,700-pound rhinoceros with hoof problems and only a concrete surface to trod.
Enter Goodyear's Flexsteel conveyor belt. Designed for coal transport, it is being used at the Buffalo Zoo in a stall for Henry the Rhino, a member of an endangered specie.
But Henry isn't being conveyed anywhere. The belt's rubber cover cushions the concrete surface, while its steel reinforcement stands up to the ground pressure of a two-ton animal.
Goodyear, maker of the world's first steel-cable belt in 1942, was contacted by zoo veterinarians needing help for the 12-year-old Indian rhinoceros.
Due to Henry's weight, cracks developed on his back 3-toed hooves, building up scar tissue, according to Veterinarian Frank Ridgley. Sixty percent of U.S. captive male Indian rhinos suffer from the same condition.
Ridgley prescribed a three-quarter-inch steel-reinforced belt with an operating tension of more than 2,000 pounds-per-inch-width. Goodyear donated the 48-inch wide belt, which was cut into 21-foot sections -- the length of Henry's stall.
If successful, the prescribed Goodyear conveyor belt will be just what the doctor ordered.
"The only way to alleviate Henry's arthritic-type pain is to operate," said Ridgley. "The conveyor belt provides relief prior to surgery and during recovery."
Buffalo-based Belt Maintenance Group, a Goodyear splice network member, helped install the belt. BMG's Joe Hooley said, "I actually think I saw Henry smile when he first walked onto his new cushioned floor."
Threatened by habitat loss and poaching, maintaining a captive population to guard against extinction of the wild population is essential to the Indian rhinoceros' survival.
"It's an unusual use for our belts," said Ray Paquin, manager of Goodyear's Marysville, Ohio plant, where the belt was manufactured, "but it's not the first time we've aided a suffering member of the animal kingdom."
A 350-pound sea turtle once received a fabric-reinforced rubber flipper designed and made by Goodyear, using a conveyor belt rubber compound. And today, recycled Goodyear conveyor belts cushion livestock stall floors.
The Buffalo Zoo, with its diverse collection of wild and exotic animals, is the nation's third oldest. Goodyear, in addition to being a global producer of heavy-duty and lightweight conveyor belts, is a leading industrial hose and power transmission products manufacturer.
For additional information, visit www.goodyearcvb.com , www.beltmaintenance.com , and www.buffalozoo.org .
Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030604/CLWFNS1AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, 888-776-6555 or 212-782-2840