Field researchers encounter many broad ethical issues shared by all researchers. Most of these issues have been explored thoroughly elsewhere (e.g., Shamoo and Resnik 2003) and it is not our intention to cover these in this module. However, we encourage all field researchers to familiarize themselves with such general issues as:

• appropriate collaboration with peer scientists
• appropriate collaboration between academic and non-academic entities
• mentoring and supervision of junior scientists
• appropriate relationships with technical staff and volunteers
• recognition of intellectual property
• proper acknowledgment and citation of the work of others
• appropriate experimental design, data collection, and data analysis
• appropriate record-keeping
• fabrication, falsification, and suppression of data
• harassment and discrimination
• conflicts of interest
• other relevant ethical issues

Field researchers also encounter ethical issues that may not affect all researchers, but that have also been thoroughly explored elsewhere. Again, we will not cover these in this module, but we encourage field researchers to familiarize themselves with such issues as:

• use of human subjects in research
• use of non-human vertebrate subjects in research

After addressing the two sets of issues listed above, one might believe that ethical considerations pertaining to field research had been adequately covered. However, we find that there are numerous ethical issues unique to field research and that most of these have received inadequate treatment in the literature. Although our list is not exhaustive, it does include important ethical issues that have been identified through discussions with colleagues and consultation of the literature:

• obtaining permission for field research on private lands
• obtaining appropriate permits/approvals for field research on public lands
• revealing sensitive location information
• depleting populations through collection of vouchers or research subjects
• manipulating the physical, biological, or cultural environment
• conducting research that involves biocides or other toxic or harmful substances
• creating enclosures, exclosures, or other restrictions to movements of organisms
• eliminating species from portions of their natural ranges
• reintroducing species to unoccupied portions of their former range
• introducing exotic species
• introducing genetically modified organisms
• creating gene flow by moving individuals between populations
• working with rare, threatened, or endangered species

Our objective in this module is to introduce field researchers to the issues listed above in a single, coherent package, while providing them with insights, tools, and guidance. It is our hope that this information will be of value to both novice and seasoned field researchers alike.