23rd February
by Dr Rebecca Lang
So last night I received a message saying I had been picked for the darting team for today’s trip into Sariska reservation. Very excited and honoured with such trust. The day started at dawn, up at 0630 with an obligatory chai tea. Then some additional practice with the dart gun and make sure that myself and my fellows on the darting team are comfortable with the task we have been given.
After a quick breakfast, the whole IWAH group headed off into the reservation, wearing lots of layers as it was still chilly. My group was darting but everyone else had their own tasks regarding anaesthetic monitoring and data collection from the deer we darted that morning.
We first selected a young male Chital deer, the dart was fired and we watched how the induction from the anaesthetic worked. He didn’t go down in the best location so he needed to be quickly moved into a safer position and a blindfold placed to keep him calm.
Then the rest of the team flooded in. First, the deer was placed on a stretcher and lifted so his weight could be measured and a tape measure moved around taking multiple measurements. The monitoring team had a pulse ox on the tongue, oxygen and capnography on the nose, a stethoscope on the chest and a thermometer recording the body temperature. Another person was writing everything down and the sampling team wiggled in to get blood from the jugular vein and ear artery.
Once everything was done we cleared the area, the sedation was reversed and we waited and watched the recovery. After about 5 minutes he was moving his head, then was up and moving around, all be it a bit wobbly. We watched until he was stable and walking off to find his herd.
Then it was take two with a male Samba deer and the whole process was repeated with everyone in a different role to gain as much experience as possible. Once we had recovered our Samba it was back to the Palace for lunch. In the afternoon we were split into two groups. One group went back into the reservation to practice darting from a moving vehicle and my group relaxed at the palace, had a siesta and time for self-learning. I’m looking forward to repeating the activities again tomorrow.
