A two-year-old brown bear in Kent is to undergo pioneering brain surgery in a UK first.

Boki, who lives at Wildwood Trust, between Canterbury and Herne Bay, has recently been suffering from seizures and related health issues.

An MRI - provided by Fitzpatrick Referrals - revealed that 115kg Boki has hydrocephalus, which is fluid on the brain.

Now, specialist wildlife veterinary surgeon, Romain Pizzi, the first surgeon ever to perform a similar operation on a black bear in Asia, has agreed to operate on Boki in the coming weeks.

Boki will be the first bear to undergo the procedure in the UK.

Wildwood’s director of zoo operation, Mark Habben, says while he is confident that surgery is Boki’s best chance to live a full life, it was not a decision made lightly.

He added: “Boki’s welfare has always been at the forefront of every path we’ve chosen since he came to us two years ago.

“We’d hoped his condition could be managed through medication but it became evident that it was no longer giving the relief to the seizures that we had initially seen.

“After consulting with medical experts and considering at length the ethics of this surgery, we believe wholeheartedly this is the best chance of providing a healthy and enriched life for Boki.

“And there’s no one better than Romain to perform this operation - an absolute leader in his field and one of the most innovative wildlife surgeons in the world.”

The operation will be performed using key-hole surgery, and Boki will be fitted with a stent which will drain the fluid from his brain into his abdomen, before he passes it.

It is hoped it will be a one-off procedure.

Whilst Boki will gain weight following the operation, the team at Wildwood is confident that his overall body length will not change significantly.

Wildwood adopted Boki from Port Lympne near Hythe two years ago after he was rejected by their brown bear family.

He had been hand-reared by keepers there and has had to learn how to behave like a bear under the guidance of his new family at the Trust.

He lives next door to the popular adult male bears Fluff and Scruff, who were rescued in Bulgaria back in November 2014.

They were living a life of neglect in barren concrete cells at a disused bear breeding station.