Clinical Blood Profiles of Stressed White-tailed Deer: Drop-net versus Harvest
We collected whole blood and serum samples from 50 harvested (unstressed) and 37 live-caught (handling stress in drop-net) adult white-tailed (Odocoileus virginianus) does to evaluate the influence of capture method on clinical blood parameters commonly used to assess nutritional condition of deer. Our study found mean values for HCT, MCV, WBC, lymphocytes, neutrophils, creatinine, cholesterol, total protein, albumin, globulin, Na, LDH, and GGTP to be significantly higher in live-caught than harvested does. The concentrations of serum inorganic P and K were lower for livecaught than...
