all right. nothing unusual about a cat queting a hair ball, right? yeah, a catment but when it s 400 pound tiger trying to hack one up, that is something we noticed. now jean yes moes on the olympic size hair ball. reporter: it wasn t just that patient was a 400 pound tiger that made this a harry operation. we mean really harry as in gigantic hair ball. and that was just the first clump removed from ty the tiger s stomach. he is like my biggest baby. this is my kid. vernon yates raised ty at his florida wildlife refuge. lately, the 17-year-old tiger hadn t been acting like himself. over a three-week period, ty ate less and less. his weight dropped 100 pounds. a vet put a scope down his throat, diagnosis, hair ball.
it turns out a tiger gets a hair ball the same way a house cat does, by licking and grooming himself. only host cats like puss & boots managed to hack up the obstruction. but ty s hair ball was way too big to cough up. doctors offered to operate without charge. the press pressed up against the window. wow! mesmerized as doctors removed clump after clump from ty s stomach. another one of those! finally, the doctor dropped the whole mess into the arms of ty s owner. show it to us. i don t want it. weighed in at four pounds. there was a 167 human hair ball a barber collected from years of
clipping clients. then the barber didn t swal throw that hair ball. this is where we separate men and boys. separated from his hair ball, his prognosis was good and the doctors praised the patient. this tiger specifically is a very, very nice, very, very sweet tiger. reporter: what do you do way four pound hair ball? ty s owner said they thought about selling it on ebay but apparently selling something from an endangered species get tricky so the plan is to just throw it away. it was as if ty gave birth to his own little bundle of fur. jeannie moos, cnn. it looks like a rodent. reporter: new york. so we need to level with you here. in the tv business, we have what we call creative differences. this is a big one. i find stories like hair balls out of tigers and bear mouths, you know, clamping down on cameras, i find these stories to be awesome. good but not morning television. people are in the middle of having breakfast.