Tiger Directory

[Pckts]

Found some interesting info on collaring....Permission and animal capture issues in IndiaDespite the invaluable help offered by radio telemetry in animal conservation, government agencies still hesitate to grant permission for such studies since the technology is invasive, involving capturing and handling the target species, whose population in the wild may be small. We asked researchers to rank the permission process in India as easy, difficult or very difficult. Of the respondents, 60% ranked the process as difficult and very difficult. The issues regarding permissions for scientific research in India were discussed in detail by Madhusudan et al.[50]. Government policies have improved since then, yet the issues have not been resolved satisfactorily. We believe that new guidelines issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, for scientific studies in protected areas [51] offer some relief to researchers. However, permission for radio-collaring has to go through various agencies at state and national levels and state governments have yet to comply with the new guidelines. There is a necessity for a centralized and uniform system to grant permissions and for guidelines for capturing and handling wild animals. Centralizing the permission system would give an element of predictability to the outcome of proposals put forward by researchers. The guidelines should consider the conservation status of the species and the criticality of the information proposed to be collected.Animals may experience negative effects due to collaring [52-54], though this issue is debatable [55,56]. So far mortality during immobilization and radio-collaring has been remarkably low in India. In some unfortunate cases of mortality occurring during radio-collaring, the press and media in India generated an acrimonious debate over the use of radio-telemetry as a tool. In the first such incident, five tigers died after two months of a collaring exercise in Nagarhole NP. However, investigations revealed no relation between the radio-collaring and mortality. One tiger died due to pulmonary disease, one was old and three others died in territorial fights on different occasions. Only one of these tigers was collared, and three of the four collared tigers were alive during this incident [57,58]. Criticism of radio-collaring is misplaced considering the success during tranquilization and collaring in the majority of the studies. It is also relevant to mention that the assessment of the health and metabolic activity of an animal to be restrained is based on an ocular estimation and the probability of rare accidents cannot be reduced to zero. The World Health Organisation has reported that medical errors are one of the top causes of mortality in hospitals [59], but this does not cause us to stop medical interventions. The key is to weigh the benefits of telemetry studies to the overall population and for conservation rather than consider individual animal-specific issues.ConclusionsThe fundamental issue in any invasive research is the criticality of the information proposed to be collected and its relevance to the overall conservation of the species. Therefore the data generated should be of good quality and easily accessible to all concerned. We believe that researchers also need to be aware of the entire gamut of issues relating to radio telemetry. Our experience during this review is that details of study methodology and the specification of equipment are not readily available. It was also observed that a large amount of data is either missing or there is a reservation among the researchers to share the data. In view of the rapid development of radio-telemetry tools, managers and researchers should have easy access to the performance parameters of the new tools to enable them to choose appropriate devices for their study. Often low funding for conservation projects and problems with the permission process for such studies do not allow researchers to access new technology. The prejudged efficacy of such technology in Indian conditions, on the basis of the experience of other researchers, will obviate the uncertainties involved in using a particular device. Keeping proper records of collaring and tagging and sharing data amongst researchers would also help future studies. These will give clear and useful feedback to the manufacturers as well, so that they can improve the quality and performance parameters of their products. Information on the failure of collars should be discussed freely and should not be interpreted as a failure of the research projects. Discussion of positive and negative experiences would help to refine the technology and improve its efficiency. Coordination amongst the institutions in India and individual researchers working in wildlife research and information technology holds promise that this technology can be adapted for India with enhanced efficiency and reduced costs and it will be less invasive in use. http://www.animalbiotelemetry.com/content/2/1/4


Seems like its still a little hearsay on what actually occurs during capture.

Hear is a interesting point
"The World Health Organisation has reported that medical errors are one of the top causes of mortality in hospitals [59], but this does not cause us to stop medical interventions."
Not sure how I feel about this, just because medical errors happen and unforseen complications happen, that is because there is no other alternative.
These tigers don't need to be captured, they are captured for our interest. I still believe that we can accomplish everything we need to conserve all these animals with a less intrusive way.
 

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