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The acute physiological response of polar bears to helicopter capture

Many wildlife species are live captured, sampled, and released; for polar bears (Ursus maritimus) capture often requires chemical immobilization via helicopter darting. Polar bears reduce their activity for approximately 4 days after capture, likely reflecting stress recovery. To better understand t...

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Autores principales: Whiteman, John P., Harlow, Henry J., Durner, George M., Regehr, Eric V., Amstrup, Steven C., Pagano, Anthony M., Ben‐David, Merav
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9324155/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35915725
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.22238
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author Whiteman, John P.
Harlow, Henry J.
Durner, George M.
Regehr, Eric V.
Amstrup, Steven C.
Pagano, Anthony M.
Ben‐David, Merav
author_facet Whiteman, John P.
Harlow, Henry J.
Durner, George M.
Regehr, Eric V.
Amstrup, Steven C.
Pagano, Anthony M.
Ben‐David, Merav
author_sort Whiteman, John P.
collection PubMed
description Many wildlife species are live captured, sampled, and released; for polar bears (Ursus maritimus) capture often requires chemical immobilization via helicopter darting. Polar bears reduce their activity for approximately 4 days after capture, likely reflecting stress recovery. To better understand this stress, we quantified polar bear activity (via collar‐mounted accelerometers) and body temperature (via loggers in the body core [T(abd)] and periphery [T(per)]) during 2–6 months of natural behavior, and during helicopter recapture and immobilization. Recapture induced bouts of peak activity higher than those that occurred during natural behavior for 2 of 5 bears, greater peak T(per) for 3 of 6 bears, and greater peak T(abd) for 1 of 6 bears. High body temperature (>39.0°C) occurred in T(per) for 3 of 6 individuals during recapture and 6 of 6 individuals during natural behavior, and in T(abd) for 2 of 6 individuals during recapture and 3 of 6 individuals during natural behavior. Measurements of T(abd) and T(per) correlated with rectal temperatures measured after immobilization, supporting the use of rectal temperatures for monitoring bear response to capture. Using a larger dataset (n = 66 captures), modeling of blood biochemistry revealed that maximum ambient temperature during recapture was associated with a stress leukogram (7–26% decline in percent lymphocytes, 12–21% increase in percent neutrophils) and maximum duration of helicopter operations had a similar but smaller effect. We conclude that polar bear activity and body temperature during helicopter capture are similar to that which occurs during the most intense events of natural behavior; high body temperature, especially in warm capture conditions, is a key concern; additional study of stress leukograms in polar bears is needed; and additional data collection regarding capture operations would be useful.
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spelling pubmed-93241552022-07-30 The acute physiological response of polar bears to helicopter capture Whiteman, John P. Harlow, Henry J. Durner, George M. Regehr, Eric V. Amstrup, Steven C. Pagano, Anthony M. Ben‐David, Merav J Wildl Manage RESEARCH ARTICLES Many wildlife species are live captured, sampled, and released; for polar bears (Ursus maritimus) capture often requires chemical immobilization via helicopter darting. Polar bears reduce their activity for approximately 4 days after capture, likely reflecting stress recovery. To better understand this stress, we quantified polar bear activity (via collar‐mounted accelerometers) and body temperature (via loggers in the body core [T(abd)] and periphery [T(per)]) during 2–6 months of natural behavior, and during helicopter recapture and immobilization. Recapture induced bouts of peak activity higher than those that occurred during natural behavior for 2 of 5 bears, greater peak T(per) for 3 of 6 bears, and greater peak T(abd) for 1 of 6 bears. High body temperature (>39.0°C) occurred in T(per) for 3 of 6 individuals during recapture and 6 of 6 individuals during natural behavior, and in T(abd) for 2 of 6 individuals during recapture and 3 of 6 individuals during natural behavior. Measurements of T(abd) and T(per) correlated with rectal temperatures measured after immobilization, supporting the use of rectal temperatures for monitoring bear response to capture. Using a larger dataset (n = 66 captures), modeling of blood biochemistry revealed that maximum ambient temperature during recapture was associated with a stress leukogram (7–26% decline in percent lymphocytes, 12–21% increase in percent neutrophils) and maximum duration of helicopter operations had a similar but smaller effect. We conclude that polar bear activity and body temperature during helicopter capture are similar to that which occurs during the most intense events of natural behavior; high body temperature, especially in warm capture conditions, is a key concern; additional study of stress leukograms in polar bears is needed; and additional data collection regarding capture operations would be useful. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-04-29 2022-07 /pmc/articles/PMC9324155/ /pubmed/35915725 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.22238 Text en © 2022 The Authors. The Journal of Wildlife Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Wildlife Society. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
spellingShingle RESEARCH ARTICLES
Whiteman, John P.
Harlow, Henry J.
Durner, George M.
Regehr, Eric V.
Amstrup, Steven C.
Pagano, Anthony M.
Ben‐David, Merav
The acute physiological response of polar bears to helicopter capture
title The acute physiological response of polar bears to helicopter capture
title_full The acute physiological response of polar bears to helicopter capture
title_fullStr The acute physiological response of polar bears to helicopter capture
title_full_unstemmed The acute physiological response of polar bears to helicopter capture
title_short The acute physiological response of polar bears to helicopter capture
title_sort acute physiological response of polar bears to helicopter capture
topic RESEARCH ARTICLES
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9324155/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35915725
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.22238
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