Stress and morbidity associated with handling free-living avian species mandates the use of single and serial anesthetic administrations to facilitate diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Anesthesia is known to have im-munomodulating effects and repeated exposure to sevoflurane anesthesia in mice resulted in declines in the circulating leukocyte populations and the capacity to produce antibodies. Leukograms of healthy free-living raptors undergoing limb manipulation were evaluated at the onset of handling and compared to those collected following a single administration of isoflurane anesthesia and following manual restraint.
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