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Frédéric Angelier and colleagues of the Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé in France have studied whether blood sampling effects Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris and come to the conclusion that no harm is done.  Their findings have been published this month on-line (and as an open-access manuscript) in the journal Polar Biology.

This is an important finding for those who wish to use invasive procedures, such as the taking of blood, in long-term demographic study colonies of albatrosses, where a general principle should be to reduce human disturbance to a minimum (by for example using colour banding to obviate the need for repetitive handling to identify incubating and brooding birds).  However, it is clear that blood sampling still needs to be undertaken with care by trained and skilled operators.

The paper's abstract follows:

"During the last decades, eco-physiological studies have usually relied on the collection of blood from wild organisms in order to obtain relevant physiological measures.  However, accurate estimates of the impact of capture and blood collection on performances of polar seabird species have rarely been conducted.  We investigated for the first time the effects of a blood-sampling process on subsequent foraging behaviour, reproductive performance and return rate of Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris at the Kerguelen Islands.  We did not find any evidence that the blood-sampling process as conducted in our study had detrimental effects on the breeding or foraging strategies or performance of Black-browed Albatrosses.  Because blood collection can be performed in several different ways, we recommend that eco-physiologists conduct pilot studies to test whether their blood-sampling process affects the performances of their study species."

Reference:

Angelier, F., Weimerskirch, H. & Chastel, O. 2010.  Capture and blood sampling do not affect foraging behaviour, breeding success and return rate of a large seabird: the Black-browed Albatross.  Polar Biology  DOI 10.1007/s00300-010-0888-7. 

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 22 October 2012