The cost of information: should black rhinos be immobilized?

Abstract

It is an axiom of science that, in order to measure a process, one ends up changing it in some way. This has been apparent to physicists for a long time but it is perhaps less apparent as a consideration in the biological literature. In many cases the degree to which one changes the process that is being measured is insignificant but there are exceptions. This problem becomes particularly difficult in wildlife biology when one is sometimes faced with gaining information from and protecting small populations of endangered animals. The combination of small sample size, and the high value of each individual to the population, mean that any interference could have negative consequences for the population. The resulting data from the study may have statistical characteristics that make it very difficult to use as a basis for conclusive results.