Tagging the flippers of penguins for long-term scientific studies significantly limits their chances of survival and ability to raise chicks, according to a decade-long study in the Antarctic.
The researchers found that the survival rates for king penguins with flipper bands dropped by 16% and the birds produced 39% fewer chicks. The finding raises serious questions about the ethics of banding penguins for research and casts doubt on years of data produced by tagging the birds in this way.
Flipper banding, a technique that involves placing a band usually made of stainless steel under penguins' flippers to identify them, is used by some researchers to identify them and gather long-term information about their behaviour and ecology.
The latest available figures, from a study published in 2000, show that between 1988 and 1996, 36,000 penguins were flipper banded by scientists.