Tagging animals / birds/ fish

[Happy82]

I was watching something the other night where they were tagging fish to see where they travel during Summer / Winter, and it reminded me of an incident where an environmentalist was claiming that yachts dropping anchor were killing sea horses and damaging the seabed but it turned out that him tagging them was actually killing more of them than the anchors (remember it from a boating forum I was signed up to!).

But are there many instances where tagging an animal could be harmful to it? Some of these tags are pretty big, and some of the ones you see (on a penguin for example) must surely hinder the natural movement of the individual it is pinned to?

[Mubby]

I watched a programme just the other week about tagging seals and thought the tags they used were huge! mustbe annoying to the animals I would have thought! surely in this day and age they can make smaller tags!

[Nightmare]

i also agree with this.....it seems utterly inconceivable that a bird weighing only a few hundred grams isnt affected by having something added to it of even a few grams. and ones they put on sharks and whales are like bloody aerials!

guess its 'greater good' and all that rather than about the individual.....

[Happy82]

While hunting for an image of a tagged penguin, I came across this article showing the tagged penguings suffered a 44% lower survival rate

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/stu...


I know it's important to learn about the species however not at the expense of their lives,surely they can use less intrusive tags? Would the small chip they use in dogs / cats be too small to track?