zoology - How is the blood volume of a living organism measured without killing it?

Polynomial gives a good hint. By adding in a known tracer of known amount that should only circulate in the blood stream, the concentration of the tracer when completely distributed will give the volume of distribution.

If the tracer only stays in the bloodstream (and that's a fairly large IF), then the V_D will be equal to the V_Blood. However, as many pharmacologists know, interactions with proteins and cells can skew that number. The blood volume is also reduced by the volume of the blood cells. However, using Andrei's method of dilution, one can merely swap the cell counts with the tracer concentration.