Penguin followup - NPR link

From the AOL Birding Community newsletter:

Bands attached to penguins’ flippers have helped scientists track their movement and migration for 50 years. Now, a new study reports that the seemingly innocuous bands have a significant effect on penguin mortality. Over a decade, flipper-banded penguins produced 39 percent fewer chicks and had a 44 percent lower survival rate, compared with penguins that did not have bands but had microchips inserted under the skin, according to the study, which appears in the journal Nature. That’s because the bands cause drag as penguins swim, and they are unable to gather food as efficiently for themselves or their chicks, said Claire Saraux, the study’s lead author and a biologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research and the University of Strasbourg.
New York Times

A NPR radio show on the subject of bands harming penguins can be heard at:
NPR.org