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BELGRADE- Radio collars, physical examinations and biological observations are all realities for wildlife biologists. However, none of these can happen unless you can actually catch the animal being studied and a group of wildlife professionals have been meeting in Belgrade this week to learn that very skill.

"When wildlife biologists want to do research on wildlife, whether it a polar bear or bobcat or deer and elk, they have to catch the animal. So I teach how to catch and sometimes chemically immobilize the animal with care honor and respect for every animal," Dr. Mark Johnson with Global Wildlife Resources, Inc. explained.

There are no polar bears or bobcats used for the training. You could say that goats were the guinea pigs since the animals have the same basic anatomy, circulation and muscle structure.

Dr. Johnson operates under the theory working on a fully awake goat is much more challenging than a sedated deer. He says the focus must always be care, honor and respect for the animals.

"First human safety is highest priority, but then the well being of the animal is important. It's more important than radio collaring. It's more important than the work that we want to do, more important that the data we may want to collect," Johnson said.

The weak link in the field operation is humans, so if we learn how to work as a group in a professional manner that allows us to use the tools in a better way too. The class was three days long and included such things as the safe operation of tranquilizer guns.