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Capture myopathy is a non-infectious disease that ensues when wild animals are subjected to severe stress when captured. Though the condition has been reported in mammals, birds and reptiles, it has been seen most commonly in cervids and bovids. Both physical and chemical captures have led to this iatrogenic disease with high morbidity and mortality. The Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation in Assam attends to several cases of displaced and injured cervids that often require capture in the wild or restraint when brought for examination. The centre handles hog deer (Axis porcinus), barking deer or Indian muntjac (Muntiacus muntjak), eastern swamp deer (Rucervus duvacelli ranjithsinhi) and sambar deer (Rusa unicolor). Given the high incidence of cervid cases at the centre and the susceptibility of these species to capture myopathy, a standard procedure was developed to minimize, if not prevent, the onset of the disease. More than the attempts to minimise the stress of capture, this standard operating procedure focuses on preventing the development of the disease post-capture. The shift in focus on post-capture management has been necessitated because the deer are often caught and restrained by volunteers and untrained individuals who bring the animal to the centre. After 3 years of implementation, this protocol could reduce the mortality among admitted cervids and as a consequence increase the release percentage. The number of deer that died in captivity within 48 hours of capture reduced significantly from 91.67% in 2010-12 to 65.38% in 2016-18. The procedure is easy to implement and non-expensive. The significance of this simple operating procedure lies in taking measures to prevent its occurrence rather than attempting to treat it after its onset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) is one of the most widely distributed small cat species in the world. For the current study, 15 leopard cat kittens were hand raised between 2015 and 2021, and the challenges faced in rehabilitating the species were evaluated. During the hand-raising phase, 73% (11/15) of the leopard cat kittens survived, while four died. The average weight gain of the kittens was 10.5 (±1.05) g per day during the milk-dependent period and 14.7 (±1.24) g per day after the introduction of solid food. At the age of 6-7 mo, they were soft released at an appropriate site by first holding them in situ in an acclimatization cage for an average of 20 days. In the absence of radio transmitters, an attempt was made using camera traps to monitor the dependency of the released cats on the supplementary food being kept in the cage. However, no post-release photos of the cats were captured, as the cats did not come back to the cage and showed no fidelity, either to the acclimatization cage or to the food being provided. Post-release monitoring via radio or satellite telemetry would have provided information on the survival and spatial ecology of the individuals. For future studies, we recommend including this approach while hand-raising and releasing leopard cats back into the wild. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hand raised four Golden jackals of age around 6 months were observed with olecranonbursitis. Frequent rubbing/trauma from the wooden floor of the refuge den was suspected to be the reason for development of olecranon bursitis. The case was confirmed by aseptic aspiration of content from lump. Later surgical intervention was planned. They were immobilized with ketamine hydrochloride and diazepam at the dose rate of 10 mg/kg and1 mg/kg, respectively. Surgically, the lumps were removed and recovery was seen in a month of surgical intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Detailed knowledge of the community structure of methanogens is essential for amelioration of methane emission from livestock species. Several studies have indicated that predominant methanogens of buffalo rumen are different from those in cattle. However, predominant genera of methanogens reported by individual studies varied primarily because of limited scope of sampling, sequencing of limited number of sequences and potential PCR bias in individual studies. In this study, the collective comparative diversity of methanogenic archaea in the rumen of cattle and buffaloes was examined by performing a meta-analysis of all the 16S rRNA (rrn) sequences deposited in GenBank. RESULTS Ruminal methanogen sequences of buffalo were clustered into 900 species-level operational taxonomic units ( OTUs), and ruminal methanogen sequences of cattle were clustered into 1522 species level OTUs. The number of species-level OTUs shared between cattle and buffaloes was 229 (10.4% of all OTUs), comprising 1746 sequences (27% of the total 6447 sequences). According to taxonomic classification by three different classifiers, Methanobrevibacter was found to be the most predominant genus both in cattle (69-71% of sequences) as well as buffaloes (65.1-68.9% of sequences). Percentage of Methanomicrobium was much higher ( P < 0.05) in the case of buffalo (18%) than that of cattle (4.5%). On the other hand, percentages of Methanosphaera- and Methanomassiliicoccus-like methanogens were much higher ( P < 0.05) in cattle than in buffaloes. CONCLUSION This study indicated that there is a substantial difference in community structure of ruminal methanogens of cattle and buffaloes. The study has also indicated that the percent of species-level operational taxonomic units shared between cattle and buffalo is very low, and thus host species-specific methane mitigation strategies need to be developed for cattle and buffaloes. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]