In wildlife conservation and research it is often necessary to tranquilise an animal for various reasons. Typical reasons include the requirement to fit a radio tracking collar, to take blood samples and other measurements or to relocate the animal to a different area. With wild animals it is obviously not usually practical (or safe) to walk up to the animal carrying a hypodermic syringe to inject it, so a different approach has to be taken. The vet or researcher needs to be able to inject the animal from a safe distance. To do this, the syringe is replaced with a tranquiliser dart which is fired either from a specialised dart gun or from a blowpipe.
The tranquiliser dart is very similar in appearance to a syringe with a feather-like tail added to give it stability in flight. The liquid drug chamber is filled with the tranquiliser to be used and the dart is then loaded into the dart gun or blow pipe, which is then aimed at the animal and fired. When the dart hits the animal, the needle penetrates its skin and the momentum of the dart makes the rear part of the dart move forward and compress the drug chamber which forces the drug out through the needle into the animal.
Once the animal has been hit with the tranquiliser dart, the researcher needs to keep close to the animal to avoid losing sight of it - which can easily happen especially at night as most animals instinctive reaction on being hit with a dart is to run away. The researcher keeps the animal under observation until the drug takes effect and the animal stops moving and lies down asleep. The researcher will then approach the animal very cautiously in case it is not fully unconscious - this is the most dangerous time for the vet or researcher and a number of people have been either killed or seriously injured by animals that had been darted but were not yet fully asleep.
Once the animal is completely unconscious then the researchers are free to do their work - e.g. fitting a collar or taking measurements and blood samples. It may be necessary to administer a further dose of drugs to keep the animal unconscious for the required amount of time, but this can be done using a standard syringe rather than a dart.
Once the researchers have completed their work the animal can either be administered an antidote to the tranquiliser to bring it round quickly, or can simply be left to wake up naturally as the drug wears off. The animal has to be left in a safe place while it recovers to avoid it being attacked by other animals or coming to harm in another way. The researcher will normally watch the animal until it has recovered sufficiently to walk or run away.
Click here to view a video of a lion being darted.
© Predator Conservation Trust.
