Abstract
1. 1. Intravenous sodium pentobarbital (10 mg/kg or less) is a satisfactory general surgical anesthesia for nurse sharks when given as a rapid push dose. 2. 2. Plasma concentrations of intravenous pentobarbital- 14C have a rapid half-life of 15 min and a second half-life of several days. The drug is not bound to plasma proteins and has little loss via the kidneys or gills. 3. 3. Brain/plasma ratios of pentobarbital- 14C is highest at 15 min (2·5 : 1), rapidly falls to (1·2 : 1) at 4 hr and unity at 24 hr. 4. 4. Muscle/plasma ratios reach a maximum peak of 0·95 : 1 at 2 hr. 5. 5. Despite pentobarbital's low molecular weight, lack of protein binding, and lipid solubility, little escapes from the gills (less than 1 per cent per hr) with a calculated gill clearance of about 0·3 ml/min. 6. 6. A length-weight nomogram provides a convenient method of determining the weight of a shark for anesthesia.
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