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Background:

生物學家多年來一直透過給企鵝做標記的方法來監視企鵝的行蹤。

法國科學家近日指出，此舉動不僅會給企鵝的健康帶來危害，而且還對已收集到的有關氣候變化的資料產生質疑。

For decades scientists have been following penguins by putting bands around their flippers.

This allows individual birds to be identified at a distance.

But there have been concerns that flipper bands might harm the birds by slowing them down as they swim.

The latest study, reported in the journal Nature, confirms it. Scientists from Strasbourg University followed a colony of king penguins for ten years.

Birds fitted with bands died younger, started breeding later in the year, took longer to forage for food and over all raised about 40 per cent fewer chicks.

The researchers suggest that using flipper bands would now be unethical in most situations.

Scientists in the field would now have to find other tagging methods but in the meantime there are also concerns that some data gathered on penguins down the years, in this ecological crucial part of the planet, may now be worthless.

Glossary 辭彙表

• band（用來做標記的）細帶子

• flipper鰭狀肢

• concerns擔憂，擔心

• to harm危害，傷害

• colony群體

• to breed生育，繁殖

• chick小企鵝

• unethical不道德的

• tagging標記

• worthless無價值的

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