(Photo courtesy of Pexels-Brett Sayles)

MARQUETTE–A group of Northern Michigan University biology students joined members of state and federal wildlife agencies recently to learn how to safely tranquilize wild animals during a three-day professional development course.

“We have a fisheries and wildlife major in biology, so there are a number of situations where future wildlife biologists might need to immobilize wildlife to put on radio collars or translocate animals to an area where there aren’t any to reintroduce the population,” said John Bruggink, NMU faculty liaison for the course.

“It’s a skill set that every wildlife biologist will use at some point in their career. This training doesn’t necessarily make you ready to go out on your own and work with wildlife without an experienced biologist who’s been doing it for a while, but at least you have the background knowledge and understand the effects of the different drugs. It’s a nice thing to have on the resume that you don’t get as part of the normal curriculum.”

The course was beneficial for students by providing hours that can be applied to multiple certifications, including the Ecological Society of America Certification and the Wildlife Society Professional Development Program.

“The classroom portion of the course covers a whole range of topics, from ethics to the different types of immobilizing drugs and reversing drugs, and different ways to handle different sorts of animals,” said Bruggink. “You have to monitor them pretty carefully when they’re anesthetized because you’re responsible for keeping them alive. You’re monitoring the vital signs and learn what to do if they get too hot or cold or stop breathing. The outdoor part involved practice shooting targets with the dart guns; technically, they’re called projectors now.”

One of the students, Anthony Clyne, a fisheries and wildlife management major, was the local coordinator for the course. Clyne works as a wildlife student assistant for the Bear, Furbearer and Small Game Specialist from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

He contacted the state and federal agencies to gather supplies and form a group for the course.

“In order to properly apply a GPS collar, take morphological measurements or blood samples for wildlife research, we sometimes have to immobilize the animals,” said Clyne. “We use a specific drug combination that is predetermined for the species we are working with.”