Linen thread was built into radio-collars as a weak-link to trial its effectiveness at ensuring that radio-collars did not remain indefinitely on animals if they were not recaptured. Eighty percent of collars with weak-links broke or degraded, resulting in the collars dropping off within 12–45 days. This method may be useful for short-term studies of some species of mammal that are difficult to recapture in order to remove collars.