Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Μύ

In Schrodinger's involving an unsuspecting, limbo-bound feline, the mere act of observing something can change its state.

In the real wild world, it's not supposed to happen - to cats or other animals.

The very idea of ecological science as it's practised nowadays is that what you see when you go into the great expanse ofΜύ nature is the reality; that you're observing animals doing what they do, unaffected by your presence.

It doesn't always work out like this.

And a 10-year project on penguins that demonstrates pretty unequivocally a big problem associated with the standard research tool, the flipper band.

As my news story relates, in a nutshell, the bands harm the penguins - slowing their foraging, shortening their lives and having a major impact on their breeding success.

So for anyone wanting to use flipper bands on penguins while they're at sea now, there are two dilemmas.

Firstly, will the research produce a conclusion that's reliable - that isn't distorted by the bands?

And secondly, are the project's aims important enough to justify harming the birds?
, the species used in this study, are pretty abundant, with an estimated population in the millions; so there's no conservation reason why shortening the lives of some would be an issue.

Even so, many of us would think twice about the ethics of research that carried these consequences.

Metal flipper bands may tag the penguin effectively - but they also harm the bird's chances

There are other types of tag available for penguins, and in some species it's possible to identify individual birds by theirΜύ markings.

So there will sometimes be alternatives, but not always - and then there will be an ethical decision to be made.

Sometimes the dilemmas are not easy.

Last month, a western gray whale from the coast of Sakhalin to... well, to wherever it goes.

This is , with only about 130 remaining.

They feed off Sakhalin - but where they go to breed, and the route they take, are unknown.

And all the while it's unknown, it'll be impossible to give them a helping conservation hand.

It looks unlikely that the satellite tag is harmful - whales have been tagged since at least the 1950s, and then with robust 25cm-long metal spikes designed to nestle inside the blubber until the animal died - so they can clearly stand it.

But if it were thought likely to compromise the whale to which it's attached, would the research have gone ahead? Would it have been worth harming one whale in order that the whole population could be better conserved?

Lethal research whaling - as practiced now by Japan - is obviously terminally harmful to the animals involved.

A couple of years ago, detailing how the blubber thickness of Antarctic minke whales had declined over the decades.

Here's a finding that could tell us much about how the Antarctic ecosystem is responding to climate change, fishing and other forces too; or perhaps - more controversially - how the recovery of larger whale species is affecting the minkes' food supply.

The gray (aka grey) whale: much left to learn

Because of squeamishness about where the finding came from, the authors reportedly submitted the research to several scientific journals before finding one willing to publish it.

Yet now the data is out there, all scientists in the field will be able to use it - and use it they should, because it's an important finding, potentially relevant to much more than whales themselves.

Could it have come through any other source than lethal research whaling?

If so - and bearing in mind that - does it justify the killing?

You might argue it does not, on the basis that thousands have been harpooned; but what if it had just been 20 or 30 - would that have been ok?

In many parts of the oceans, you can find fishing boats engaged on something that might sound like an oxymoron - fishing for conservation.

Scientific sampling of ocean areas determines fish abundance. Trials with new nets aim to reduce bycatch, or improve the specificity of fleets for certain fish species or ages - but again, fish die in the process.

The midwife toad now carries the additional cargo of chytridiomycosis

So is that justified?

Occasionally, the mere presence of conservation scientists has been enough to damage wildlife.

On several occasions over the last decade, chimpanzees in Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park .

And nearly 20 years ago, conservationists attempting to look after the midwife toad of Mallorca inadvertently - an introduction to the frequently lethal fungal disease , the spores presumably carried into toad colonies on human boots.

Yet when you think of the fantastic amount of work that scientists have done to study, conserve and raise awareness of the plight of Africa's non-human primates - and how much work is needed to stop chytrid and other threats decimating amphibian species - you might conclude that a few sick apes and a few dead toads were worth it; or you might not.

One of the first principles of medical ethics is "first do no harm" - and some have suggested this could usefully be adopted for conservation too.

But the only way to be sure of doing no harm is to do nothing at all... and then it becomes very difficult to do any good.

So what are we to make of it all? What have I missed?

And might Schrodinger usefully have put a monkey, a whale and a king penguin in with his quantum mechanical cat?

Μύ

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