Dear MARMAM community, on behalf of my co-authors, I am happy to share with you a new publication in the Journal of Marine Animals and Their Ecology with the title: An Innovative Approach for Combining Marking of Phocid Seals with Biopsy Sampling by Using a New Type of Livestock Ear Tags van Neer, A., Rubio-Garcia, A., Gross, S., Salazar-Casals, A., Arriba-Garcia, A., Wohlsein, P., & Siebert, U. Abstract: Marking of seals is done for different purposes such as re-identification of single individuals within a rehabilitation centre, or to conduct capture-mark-recapture studies assessing ecological parameters on a population scale. Until today most studies use conventional livestock ear tags applied to the interdigital tissue of the flippers of seals. Here we present a different type of tag which combines the marking of an animal with the acquisition of a biopsy sample. This combination enables researchers to gain more data within the same handling time, following the three Rs principle (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement) used in animal experiments to optimise the ratio between animal suffering versus knowledge gain. This study describes a first trial within a seal rehabilitation centre, with the aim to assess the application process of this new tag as well as the rate of bleeding and healing following the application. Results show that the new tag type is suitable even in places with unrestricted public access and enables the researcher to gain additional data further supporting ethical justification. The article is open access and freely available online via http://www.oers.ca/journal/volume12/issue1/scientific.pdf Please feel free to get in touch with us in case you have any questions regarding the work conducted or the use of these flipper tags. I would like to wish everybody a great Christmas in these troubled times Stay healthy and happy and take care of each other!!! Cheers Abbo ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Abbo van Neer Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research (ITAW) University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation Werftstr. 6 25761 Büsum Germany ☏ +49 5 11 - 8 56 - 81 62 Fax: +49 5 11 - 8 56 - 81 81 abbo.van.neer@tiho-hannover.de<mailto:abbo.van.neer@tiho-hannover.de> https://www.tiho-hannover.de/itaw SAVE FORESTS - Please do not print this e-mail unless absolutely necessary