Fishy Bandages

Hundreds of animals injured in last year’s wildfires in California got an unusual treatment for their burns: bandages made of fish skin. Veterinarians covered the animals’ wounds with sterilized skin from a fish called tilapia. The skin naturally contains a compound called collagen, which helped heal the animals’ damaged tissue.

Jamie Peyton, a veterinarian at the University of California, Davis, pioneered the treatment. She has used fish-skin bandages to heal burns on 10 different species. “The tilapia skin is quite tough and thick enough to provide a physical barrier to protect the wound from trauma and infection,” says Peyton. “It also covers the exposed nerve endings to help reduce the pain associated with the burn.”