Alleged Overdose of Tranquillizer Kills Captured Bison
Mangaluru: Due to the alleged negligence of the forest officials, one of the bison which was caught in the morning died within a few hours on May 5.
Two bison were spotted in the morning in Alake near the Vishal Nursing home and another was spotted near the Warehouse in Mannagudda. The nearby residents immediately informed the forest officials who arrived at the spot at Mannagudda and succeded in catching the bison by tranquilizing them.
Locals allege that the veterinary doctor had given a high dose of a tranquilizer which led to the death of the bison. The forest officials took almost two hours to catch the bison. While trying to secure the bison, the doctor had twice tranquilized the bison to bring it under control.
Speaking to mangalorean.com Animal rescuer Touseef said, “We have lost one bison out of the 2 that entered Mangalore due to post-capture stress issues. It’s an unfortunate incident and proper investigation should be done”.
Touseef further said, “A heartfelt request to the general public to let the authorities do their job and not run behind with cameras and mobiles. It was a mess this morning with hundreds of people gathered around. Half the chaos was created by the people and that’s why the bull was over exhausted running all around”.
Touseef also said, “The biggest problem to date is that the state govt has not appointed a full-time vet for the forest dept here. Only Bandipur and Bannerghatta have full-time vets, here every time there are such cases, the forest department is helpless and needs to depend on Pilikula or private vets. Can’t our govt appoint a full-time vet? Why such carelessness?”
This could be due to capture myopathy and not drug overdose. It’s seen in the article that the guar was exhausted before it was darted by the disturbance caused by the people.This can lead to capture myopathy and death of the animal. I know several wildlife vets who have lost their life during this process and commotion created by the public. The police force should be able to control the public. The post immobilisation monitoring is hence very important and vital. The animal should be transported taking all precautions to prevent aspiration and cardiopulmonary failure. Sad that the state is not appointing full time forest vets. See your neighbour Kerala has posted one forest vet per district to take care of their wildlife. Why should Karnataka lack in this regard.