Measuring devices on wild animals: what constitutes acceptable practice?

In a world that is increasingly perturbed by humans, the need to understand ecosystems is urgent. Attaching measuring devices to wild animals is often the only way to acquire vital life-history information on larger, charismatic species, and on cryptic species that do not lend themselves to observation. However, the ethics of acceptable practice for attached devices are poorly defined. Here, we consider the need for further research and attempt to identify a system that allows animal restraint practices and device-induced effects to be quantified and monitored, so that ethics committees can have a defined scale on which to base decisions.