Lake 2010: Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change

CAPTIVE BREEDING: A POTENTIAL METHOD FOR CONSERVATION OF SPECIES

Ashitha Suresh, Seema Raman, Disha Dinesh and Shubhakara.G

Department of Biology, Christ Junior College, Hosur Road, Bangalore- 29

ABSTRACT

Captive Breeding is the process of breeding in human controlled environments with restricted settings, such as wildlife preserves, and other conservation facilities; sometimes the process is construed to include release of individual organisms to the wild, when there is sufficient natural habitat to support new individuals or when the threat to the species in the wild is lessened.

Simplifying that, it is a process where the is brought in and raised under human controlled supervision, taught to fend for itself and released back into the wild to breed and increase its number.

Introduction:

Generally, animal rights groups do not support captive breeding. This stand is based on the purely theological concept that it is immoral to interfere with the lives of all animals. However, as humans have become increasingly dependent on natural resources, the chances of decrease in habitat destruction are painfully little. Therefore, we must resort to other measures to save the earth.

Steps of captive breeding:

Step1: get a self sustaining population: There should be enough breeding stock to provide a surplus. For big animals, this requires a lot of space.

Step2: Find and acquire a suitable amount of adequate and protected habitat: Field studies must be conducted to determine the amount and type of habitat required by new population. The population must be protected from whatever caused its previous decline

Step 3: Introduce effective techniques to prepare the animals for re-introduction: Training re-introductees prior to release in predator, ability to find and process, how to interact properly with other animals; how to find/construct shelter.

Step 4: Post release monitoring and evaluation: There must be constant monitoring provides opportunity to evaluate and modify program

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Lake 2010: Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change

Success of captive breeding:

Captive breeding has a high success rate.

ü 19% of all , 10% of all bird species have been bred in captivity.

ü 90% of all mammals, 74% of all birds added to collections worldwide were born in captivity since 1985.

ü Some species like Przewalski’s horse, Arabian and Pere David’s that are thrive in zoos.

ü A number of wild populations of species like Bald Eagle, Golden Lion Tamarin, Andean condors and Red Wolves were born in captivity and now live free.

Drawbacks of captive breeding:

Ø Some species can be very hard to breed in captivity.

Ø It gives a false sense that the battle against extinction is being won.

Ø It’s expensive. It diverts resources from ecosystem and habitat conservation

Ø There is no point in captive breeding if the habitat no longer exists or

Ø cannot be expected to exist in 200 years time.

Ø Long term funds and commitment by individuals/agencies is necessary.

Case study: Pere David’s deer:

Pere David’s deer died out in the wild long ago as it was hunted to extinction by Chinese emperors. The deer left were present in private herds. Abbe Armand David sent some of the animals to for research. During this time, there was a severe food crisis in China that led to the extinction of all the deer. Therefore, the population was reconstructed from the 18 deer in England and reintroduced to China in 1956 after World War II. The deer are now thriving in numbers.

Conclusion:

Captive Breeding is one of the best conservation tools of the age. The success rate has been very high and many animals which were nearly extinct were brought back to the world, all due to captive breeding. At the same time, there are yet to be more obstacles that have to be overcome with more awareness. In this project, we have learnt that we can bring back our animals that are on the verge of extinction.

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Lake 2010: Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change

References:

Allendorf, F. W. 1986. Delay of adaptation to captive breeding by equalizing family size. Zoo Biology 5:181–190.

Mace, Georginam M., "Genetic management of small populations", International Zoo Yearbook, Vol.24-25, No.1, 1986, pp.167-174.

Griffin, Andrea S., Daniel T. Blumstein, and Christopher S. Evans. "Training Captive Bred or Translocated animals to avoid predators." Conservation Biology 14.5 (2000): 1317-326.

Beck, Benjamin B., Kleiman, Devra G., Dietz, James M., Castro, Ines, Carvalho, Cibele, Martins, Andreia & Rettberg-Beck, Beate, "Losses and Reproduction in Reintroduced Golden Lion Tamarins Leontopithecus rosalia", Dodo, Journal of the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust, No.27, 1991, pp.50-61.

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