The Challenges Surrounding Reintroduction Biology

BY KATIE MORELL

22 www.aza.org | January 2016 January 2016 | www.aza.org 23 Listed as by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the has yet to be reintroduced to its native land, so a satellite home for the species has been created on the neighboring Pacific island of Rota— the place where Newland felt his faith in reintroduction falter, if just for a minute. “On my first trip to Rota, I remember stepping off the plane and seeing a dead on the ground at the airport,” he said. “Someone had run over it with their car.” The process of reintroducing a species into the wild can be tricky at best. There are hundreds of factors that go into the decision—environmental, political and © Sedgwick County , Yang Zhao Yang Zoo, © Sedgwick County sociological. When it works, the results are exhilarating for the public and environmentalists. That is what happened in the 1980s when biologists were alerted to the plight of the , pushed to near extinction by a pesticide called DDT. By 1982, there were only 23 condors left; five years later, a robust breeding and reintroduction program was initiated to save the species. The program worked, condors were released, DDT was outlawed and, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), as of 2008 there were t was a few years ago when Scott more condors flying in the wild than in Newland felt his heart drop to managed care. his feet. As curator of at This story popularized the concept the Sedgwick County Zoo in of reintroduction, but it did not publicize Wichita, Kan., he oversees the the myriad of challenges faced by AZA- care of 950 birds at the Zoo and accredited facilities and other involved serves as program leader for the parties facilitating such programs. Rail Species Survival Plan® (SSP). In addition to focusing on Reviving the Guam Rail maintaining a genetically healthy One effort fraught with challenges is the and sustainable population of Guam rails reintroduction of the Guam rail, a species in Association of and Aquariums that was pushed to the brink of extinction (AZA)-accredited facilities, this program after World War II when the U.S. developed also includes reintroduction efforts for this a military base on the island and, as part endangered 7-ounce, flightless, once- of its supply efforts, sourced goods from indigenous bird. neighboring Australia and New Guinea. In

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those shipments came several brown tree breeding program was initiated, quickly snakes, an foreign to Guam. proving successful. By the late 1980s, zoos The once lush and sparsely populated were running out of room to hold rails. island had never before seen a snake; Guam This is when the idea to open a site on harbored more than a dozen indigenous Rota came about with the goal of creating bird species without predators. The rail laid a self-sustaining population and eventually bright white eggs in the dirt without fear and initiating reintroduction to Guam. didn’t need to fly to sustain life, making the Fast forward nearly 30 years and brown tree snake all the more lethal. the AZA, along with UFSWS and the “These birds were basically producing a Guam Department of Agriculture, are buffet for the snake,” said Newland. still working to come up with a way to By the late 1970s, biologists noticed reintroduce the rail back in its home range. a rapid decline in the rail population. In The challenges are seemingly endless, the 1980s, the remaining Guam rails were starting with the still-omnipresent brown rounded up—just 21 of them—and a tree snake.

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“The Department of Agriculture on the U.S. government, which has built out Guam has spent millions trying to eradicate much of the island. Today, the military is it and they have traps all over the place, but cooperative with efforts to eradicate snakes they’ve estimated that there are 1,000 brown and put rails back on Guam, but as Newland tree snakes per square mile, probably around knows, that agreement could change at any 300,000 on the island,” said Newland. time. “We get what land they grant us, but In addition, dogs, cats and rats (all new any day they could come in and say we are to the island since the U.S. military presence) done and need to give up a piece of land have proven to be a problem. Even less meant for the rail,” Newland said. obvious challenges include the necessity When asked if he sees the rail back on from a preserve in Michigan and brought to for increasing education on the ground in Guam in the near future, Newland hesitates. the Zoo to be bred and reintroduced. Rota and Guam. Newland visits both islands “I turn 40 this year, and I don’t know “We selected the Allegan State Game regularly to meet with student groups and if I will see them released on Guam in my Area in Michigan as our source because talk about the importance of the rail. lifetime,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that the Karner blues were there,” he said, “Rails are great education our kids won’t figure it out.” adding that Ohio’s Kitty Todd Nature because they can go into the classroom with Preserve was chosen as the place to you,” he said. “We bring them and they climb %ULQJLQJ%XWWHUŴLHV%DFNWR2KLR reintroduce the species. on the desks and mess with the kids; it helps More than 7,500 miles east of Guam in In 1998, Magdich and his team brought them make a connection to the animal.” Toledo, Ohio, Mitchell Magdich has been 26 female Karner blues from Michigan down Transportation can also be difficult. working for more than 20 years to help to a greenhouse in Toledo. Within the first Regulations enforced after 11 September reintroduce the Karner blue butterfly year, more than 500 butterflies that were 2001 have made it challenging to transport back into the wild in Northwest Ohio. The released flourished in their reintroduction live animals overseas and across borders. animals once common in the upper United site. Today, the species is living and breeding As of now, the SSP transports rails to Rota States started disappearing in certain states in two locations in Northwest Ohio. The through Hawaii via a single air carrier. “We in the late 1980s, and by the early 1990s, problem? In 2012, the federal government live and die by United Airlines,” he said. Magdich, curator of education at the Toledo pulled the plug on collecting the butterfly Also impactful to the future viability Zoo, began a program through which a in Michigan because the population had of rails on Guam is the cooperation with number of Karner blues would be taken started to crash.

January 2016 | www.aza.org 27 River,” said George, noting that there have been challenges, mostly related to finding consistent funding and increasing monitoring efforts. However, the sturgeon are doing well largely because of the healthy habitat in which they can now live and regulations in place making it illegal to keep sturgeon in in most of the southeastern .

Facing Challenges with Optimism The struggle to mitigate threats to a species’ habitat is perhaps the most outwardly challenging aspect of reintroduction, as evident with the Guam rail. But as Magdich attests, most AZA reintroduction programs

© Mitchell Magdich face three common trials. First, funding. Reintroduction projects “We went from tens of thousands of thanks in part to a healthy habitat. The once are incredibly costly in time and resources. Karner blues to hundreds, even tens, so they prevalent fish had gone nearly extinct in During down years, a project may lose its didn’t want us collecting any more,” he said, Tennessee and Alabama by the 1960s. funding. “It is important that you try to have adding that the decline can be attributed “Overfishing, poor water quality and large a variety of funding sources and not rely on to the effects of climate change. “The good scale habitat modification by way of dam a single one,” Magdich suggested. news is that they continue to persist in Ohio building pushed lake sturgeon to the brink of Second, personnel. These programs without any releases since 2012. I would call extinction,” said Dr. Anna George, director require a high level of expertise. “Let’s say it successful today, but it would take just one of the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation one person doesn’t bother to check the [natural] event to wipe out everything.” Institute in Chattanooga, Tenn. temperature in a greenhouse. It gets too high As a result of legislation such as the and you find out that you wiped out all of The Importance of Habitat Clean Water Act (1972) and changes to the your animals for the year. That can happen,” Creating a habitat primed for a specific way some Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) he noted. species is an integral piece of the dams were operated—such as increasing Third, changing political climates. New reintroduction puzzle. The Guam rail cannot minimum water flows to oxygenate the administrations—state or federal—can bring go home because of the presence of the water—the rivers looked primed for with them changing priorities regarding brown tree snake. The California condor, on sturgeon habitation again. In the late natural resources. “Topics surrounding the other hand, has been able to reenter the 1990s, sturgeon eggs from Wisconsin were endangered species are highly political,” he wild because of regulations prohibiting the brought to Tennessee and raised in captivity. said. “With reintroduction programs, you use of DDT, though the species still struggles Two years later, they were released and are always living on a knife’s edge.” with lead, which remains prevalent in the monitored. environment. The lake sturgeon is another “Now, 15 years on, more than 185,000 Katie Morell is a writer based in example of a successful reintroduction, have been released into the Tennessee San Francisco, Calif.

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