Treatment of Wild Elephant in standing recumbancy using sedatives and dissociative drug mixture in West Bengal .
Since 1998, West Bengal is using sedative and dissociative drug mixture for capturing and treating injured wild animals. For elephants, being the largest of land mammals, the choice of drug was Immobilon (a combination of highly potent narcotic and sedative drug) for quick action and safety margin which brings down the elephant in deep sleep. But due to unavailability of Immobilon , another safe and effective drug mixture was thought of for a quite long time, because Xylazine HCl , a sedative generally used for elephants cannot bring the desired state of sedation. So Ketamine HCl , a dissociative, has been mixed with Xylazine HCl which proved successful in many operations in West Bengal since 1988 for treatment of large injured bulls. Elephants were also captured, translocated and treated using this technique in other states like Jharkhand, Orissa, Anadaman where our personnel assisted the local authorities.
In a recent incident in North Bengal , a huge makna bull elephant in musth, was found limping in the forests of Dhupjhora Range of Gorumara National Park. It had an bullet injury in the right leg. Generally an animal with large body structure falls on the ground after sedation. In this case, the doses of drugs were such that the elephant fell asleep but did not slump. Had it fell on the ground, it would have been very difficult to treat its leg injury specially if it fell on the side on which it had the leg injury. But in this case, due to the position of the sedated elephant in standing recumbancy , the Vet could treat the elephant well & much quicker and the elephant was brought to senses very soon.
The Bullet injury after extraction and treatment.
