when we were staying at sausage tree camp/lower zambesi we watched 2 sub-adult male lions which immigrated from mana pools in zimbabwe. one of the lions wore a radio collar which was far to tight and obviously had been put on at least a year or so before. the mane was clearly divided and stood upright besides the collar.
it seemed the researchers had finished their "job" and just forgot about that poor lion.
the zambian wildlife service has been informed and a vet has been asked in in order to dart the lion to get the collar off - and then send it back to mugabe [twinkle]

we heard also of a cheetah in congo which was collard with a "left over lion collar" by researchers. after a week or so one found the cheetah dead due to starvation because the lion-collar was far to heavy and interferred with its hunting.

is all this research really necessary and doesn't it cause more bad than good?
the more we see of these collar business the more opponent we become.
it seems that researchers often don't just care about the animals but their own fame !

I saw a program on Turtles - and the same was done with them; also a camera was mounted to track them and see what happens. This surely effects their swimming patern and movement - although the cameras were removed after a couple of weeks (I hope).