The effect of investigator disturbance on egg laying, chick survival and fledging mass of short-tailed shearwaters (Puffinus tenuirostris) and little penguins (Eudyptula minor)

Field-based animal researchers need to balance the potential adverse effects of their research activities against the benefits of research outcomes, but the data required to do this are often lacking. Assessing, and subsequently reporting the effects of researcher activities on wild animal populations can be difficult, so that studies to detect these effects sometimes lack rigour or fail to encompass sufficient time to ensure that the effects are tested under a range of environmental stresses. We monitored the effect of investigators working in colonies of two seabirds, the short-tailed shearwater (Puffinus tenuirostris) and the little penguin (Eudyptula minor). Disturbance of breeding birds while checking nests or the weighing of chicks to monitor growth are very common activities for demographic and ecological studies, but how these activities may influence the birds is rarely measured. We investigated differing levels of disturbance during both activities between 2002-03 and 2008-09 to assess their effect on egg laying, chick survival and growth rate and observed no effect for nest checking or handling of short-tailed shearwaters and indeterminate effects for handling in little penguins. Over a period of several years the study has observed a large-scale decline in the number of breeding shearwaters and includes years when control nests had above and below average breeding success.