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Ecologists now emphasize the concept of mosaic. All animals need different things from their habitat, and a failure of supply of any one is disastrous. Giant pandas feed mainly on bamboo, but give birth in old hollow trees of which there is a shortage. Birds commonly roost in one place, but feed in special areas far away. Nature reserves must either contain all essentials for an animal's life, or else allow access to such areas elsewhere. For many animals in a reserve, these conditions are not fulfilled. Hence year by year, after reserves are created, species go extinct: a process called species relaxation. The remaining fauna and flora may be a poor shadow of the original. Interest is increasing in captive breeding, carried out mainly by the world's 800 zoos. Their task is formidable; each captive species should include several hundred individuals. Zoos maintain such numbers through cooperative breeding, organized regionally and coordinated by the Captive Breeding Specialist Group or the World Conservation Union, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Each programme is underpinned by a studbook, showing which individuals are related to which. Breeding for conservation is different from breeding for livestock improvement. Livestock breeders breed uniform creatures by selecting animals conforming to some prescribed ideal. Conservation breeders maintain maximum genetic diversity by encouraging every individual to breed, including those reluctant to breed in captivity; by equalizing family size, so one generation's genes are all represented in the next; and by swapping individuals between zoos to prevent inbreeding. Cooperative breeding programmes are rapidly diversifying; by the year 2000 there should be several hundred. They can only make a small impression on the 15 million endangered species, but they can contribute greatly to particular groups of animals, especially the land vertebrates mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. These include most of the world's largest animals, with the greatest impact on their habitats. There are 24,000 species of land vertebrate, of which 2,000 probably require captive breeding to survive. Zoos could save all 2,000, which would be a great contribution. Conclusion Captive breeding is not intended to establish 'museum' populations, but to provide a temporary 'lifeboat'. Things are hard for wild animals, but over the next few decades, despite the growing human population, it should be possible to establish more and safer national parks. The Arabian oryx, California condor, black-footed ferret, red wolf, and Mauritius kestrel are among the creatures so far saved from extinction by captive breeding and returned to the wild. In the future, we can expect to see many more. Related Articles: biodiversity conservation dinosaur ecology
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endangered species extinction (biology) habitat nature reserve poaching rainforest rhinoceros species tiger zoo Copyright Helicon Publishing Ltd 2000. All rights reserved.
file://C:\Program Files\PHRS\Data\F0000162.htm
24/05/2013