Gentle immobilization of wild and grazing animals
“In our practice we offer distance immobilization of escaped animals or creel game by means of blowpipe and/or anesthesia gun.
Anesthesia guns are gentle cold gas anesthesia guns that comply with animal welfare standards and can be used to shoot anesthesia darts up to distances of 50 m. Distances for blowguns are about 8 to 10 m.
In special cases and upon prior official approval the practice offers expertise, under weapons law, to kill grazing cattle by bullet shot."
Goal: Gentle anesthetization from a distance.
Treating grazing animals such as cattle, horses and sheep as well as wild animals, can be challenging. As sometimes approaching them is not possible, the animals must be immobilized from a distance.
For short distances:
Blowpipe for short distances
For distances of up to about 11 m a blowpipe is used since it is quiet and spares the animals due to a low impact force.
For long distances
Cold gas rifle for long distances:
For further distances (up to about 20 to 30 m) we use a cold gas rifle. While distances of up to 60 m are possible, such rifles are only used in exceptional cases.
The possible distance depends, among other factors, on visibility, wind conditions and animal size. Since the impact force on the animals is relatively high, immobilization at short range is preferable.
Night vision and thermal imaging
At night, runaway animals may also be detected using infrared thermal imaging cameras and night vision equipment.