Research overview: anaesthesia, immobilisation and welfare risk in captive big cats

Chemical immobilisation is sometimes unavoidable for examining or treating large carnivores, but it carries welfare and mortality risks and is itself stressful. This overview surveys the welfare considerations of anaesthetising captive felids: the stress of darting and induction, physiological risks such as respiratory depression, hyperthermia and capture-related complications, recovery hazards, and the cumulative welfare cost of repeated immobilisations. It examines how cooperative-care training to enable voluntary injections, blood draws, ultrasound and examinations dramatically reduces the need for anaesthesia, and how good protocols, monitoring and pre-planning lower risk when immobilisation is necessary. It discusses analgesia and the principle of minimising procedures. The synthesis frames reducing reliance on immobilisation through training as a major welfare advance for big-cat medicine.