Telenarcosi: solo per animali selvatici?

Abstract

Telenarcosis is a widespread practice in wild animals especially for research purpose but even for public safety reasons and, in these cases, teleanesthesia can also concern domestic animals like dogs, cats, cows or horses. There are various remote delivering systems of drugs to obtain a complete immobilization with telenarcosis. Drug delivering systems differ from each other depending on the operating system (eg. CO2 guns, gunpowder rifles, or manual instruments such as blowguns, pole syringes or jabsticks). The choice of the tool depends on the circumstance, the animal species we have to capture and the veterinarian’s familiarity with the tools. Furthermore, some delivering systems (eg. rifles or guns) require the firearms license according to Italian law. To immobilize animals with remote delivering systems the veterinarian can use a wide variety of drugs which have different characteristics and effects (also adverse effects). The most commonly used drugs for chemical capture of animals are the followings: opioids (eg. etorphine, fentanyl, carfentanyl, thiafentanyl and butorphanol) that induce narcosis, alpha-2 agonists (xylazine, detomidine, dexmedetomidine and medetomidine) with sedative effects, benzodiazepines (eg, midazolam, diazepam and zolazepam), phenothiazines (eg. acepromazine), butyrophenones (eg. azaperone) with anxiolytic effects, cyclohexylamines (ketamine and tiletamine) with dissociative effects and neurosteroid anesthetics (alfaxalone) that may induce anesthesia. The right choice of drug, dosage and their combinations play a crucial role on the health of the animal and on the success of the capture. Not less important is the correct antagonization of the drugs to counteract side effects or awaken the animal at the end of the procedure. On the field, at the moment of the capture procedures, the veterinarian must have good and complete equipment and follow some rules on the choice of drugs, their dosage, on the approach and on the correct treatment of the darted animal. The literature review aims to report the main capture protocols and researches on chemical immobilization about the most common animals (especially wild animals) in Italy. The species covered by the thesis are the followings: red deer, fallow deer, roe deer, wild boar, mouflon, ibex, chamois, wolf, brown bear, lynx, badger, red fox, nutria, horse, cow, dog and cat.