captive Breeding
...ds added to U.S. zoo collections since 1985 were born in captivity. Some species are extinct in the wild but thrive in zoos: Przewalski's horse, Arabian Oryx, Pere David's deer. A number of wild populations of species were born in captivity and now live free: Bald Eagle, Golden Lion Tamarin, Andean condors, red wolves. A successful captive breeding program by US F&W with a bobwhite quail generated the creation of a wildlife refuge in southern Arizona to allow its successful reintroduction. Public awareness and concern can be assembled by such efforts ( Ktelman, 2001). Some critics believe that captive breeding is the only hope for the survival of some species where the threat to their existence in the wild is now severe. This conservation method serves many other purposes such as allowing more control over breeding in order to avoid inbreeding, increased reproductive rate, providing educational and public awareness programs and providing materials for basic and applied research. Zoos, botanical gardens and aquaria have found new purpose and direction, providing a safety net when other protective measures have failed. The technology for management of captive populations of endangered species in zoos is primitive but rapidly improving. There are roughly 500,000 mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians in captivity in zoos throughout the world. 500,000 is equal to about 1% of the number of cats in American households (Bryant, 2002). The potential role of zoos for species conservation is limited by space and expense. In the U.S., zoos contain self-sustaining populations of a total of only 96 species. The cost of maintaining a herd of about 100 herbivores is up to $250,000 a year, much more than the cost of maintaining the same number in the wild (Bryant, 2002). It is expected that if existing zoos were used solely for captive breeding of threatened species, a maximum of about 900 species of vertebrates could be kept alive in captivity. But at least 2000 mammals, reptiles and birds would have to be bred in captivity in the near future in order to escape extinction. Most captive breeding programs in zoos focus on large birds and mammals, partly because they face greater extinction threats than do most small animals, but also because these are more successful in attracting customers. Certainly, the eventual goal is that zoos will aid as facilities for the temporary recovery of species prior to their return to the wild within a few generations. Aquaria have been much less successful than zoos in breeding threatened species, in spite of the fact that there are threats to large numbers of freshwater species and that many of these fish take up very little space. The captive breeding specialist group of IUCN is mounting a major effort to develop captive breeding programs for endangered fish species, such as the cichlids of Lake Victoria, the desert fishes of North America and Appalachian stream fishes. Some of these will need to be propagated in aquaria for many generations in view of the difficulty in solving the exotic predators or acid rain problems. Despite the many factors that regard captive breeding as being beneficial there has been much criticism. One such critic are the animal rights groups. They do not support captive breeding programs. This belief is based on the concept that it is immoral to interfere with the lives of all animals. This includes keeping animals captive for any reason (medical research, meat and dairy production, wool, pets, etc.). This moral ban can even extend to visual observation, radio-tagging and other research done on wild populations to develop effective management techniques for conservation. These critics arguments seems to be largely theological in nature. Theological arguments of this nature are based on faith in a system of beliefs and not open to rational discussion centered around available information (Kaplan,2002). Critics believe that captive breeding only focuses on a few, fascinating endangered species. They think that genetic diversity may have sunk too low to be regenerated. Critics argue that captive breeding gives false sense that battle against extinction is being won. Another problem that critics believe is with the use of captive-bred p...