Immobilization of muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) with etorphine and xylazine

doi:10.1186/1751-0147-53-42

Acta Vet Scand. 2011; 53(1): 42.

Published online 2011 June 27. doi: 10.1186/1751-0147-53-42

PMCID: PMC3141559

Immobilization of muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) with etorphine and xylazine

Arnoldus Schytte Blix,¹ Hans Lian,¹ and John Ness¹

¹Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway

Corresponding author.

Arnoldus Schytte Blix: asb000/at/uit.no; Hans Lian: hans.lian/at/uit.no; John Ness: john.ness/at/uit.no

Received March 9, 2011; Accepted June 27, 2011.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract

One hundred and thirty three "wild" muskoxen, 81 of which of known body mass, were successfully immobilized using etorphine (M99), and xylazine (Rompun^®), delivered by use of a dart gun. A dose of 0.05 mg/kg M99, supplemented by 0.15 mg/kg Rompun was found to be very effective. This dose is much higher than currently recommended e.g. by Handbook of Wildlife Chemical Immobilization.

Articles from Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica are provided here courtesy of
BioMed Central