In a time when just about anyone with a handheld device can capture high-quality digital images and audio recordings, researchers from Arizona and the United Kingdom think it's time their scientific colleagues re-consider how they capture biological specimens.

Field biologists, explain the collaborative team, traditionally collect specimens to distinguish individual species, simply confirm animals in fact exist in the wild or identify those designated as endangered.

However, at this point, argues a new study from Arizona State University and Plymouth University, the standard methods for collecting specimens are themselves posing a risk to the species researchers are attempting to save.

The researchers voice their concerns in the April 18 issue of the journal Science.

"We are drawing attention to this issue as an important question bearing on the ethical responsibilities of field biologists," Ben Minteer, an environmental ethicist and conservation scholar in ASU's School of Life Sciences, said in a news release. "It concerns not only an increased extinction threat to re-discovered species, but also the collection of specimens from small populations more generally."

Added Minteer, also university chapter chair of the Arizona Zoological Society: "Because these populations are very small and often isolated, they are incredibly sensitive to over-collecting ... Combine the understandable impulse to confirm something really important -- such as that a species is not, in fact, extinct -- with the sensitivity of a population to collection and you've got a potentially significant conservation issue."

In the paper, Minteer and his colleagues list several examples of the decline or loss of animal species due to the impact of field collections by both professional scientists and amateur naturalists.

The researchers suggest using a combination of modern, non-lethal techniques to confirm a species' existence.

Instead of taking actual specimens from the field, researchers could use high-resolution photography and audio recordings of sounds or mating calls, in combination with DNA sampling, such as taking swabs of mouth or other cells from the species being studied.

Those contemporary technologies, the researchers say, could prove just as effective in identifying organisms while avoiding the risk of study-exacerbated extinction for small populations.

"The time to change is now ... the negative effects of collecting samples from endangered animal populations is a concern that applies across taxa and around the world. The argument that 'this is how we've always done it' is not good enough," said Minteer.

"The thrill of rediscovering a species must be one of the most exciting events in a biologist's life, however it is easy to forget it comes with significant responsibilities," said Robert Puschendorf, a conservation biologist with the School of Biological Sciences at Plymouth University. "What impact are we causing to the species even in this first encounter?"

The scientific community already has the technology "to gather crucial evidence to substantiate our finding without harming the animals," he said. "There is no need to collect by default."