The big
sleep
It may rank
fairly low in most lists of pressing problems to be solved but an increasing
number of zoos and wildlife collections as well as gamekeepers nevertheless
need to come up with an answer: How do
you anaesthetize a hippopotamus? Difficulties are posed not only by the
undesirability of approaching waking animals but also by hippos’ unique skin
morphology and by the animals’ sensitivity to standard anaesthetic methods. A
new procedure is now described by the group of Chris Walzer at the Research
Institute of Wildlife Ecology of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna
and published in the current issue of the “Journal of the American Veterinary
Medical Association”.
read more:
image: