Captive Breeding

• There are two types of conservation: ex-situ conservation, which is outside of the habitat, and in-situ conservation, which is in the habitat.
• Ex-situ conservation includes captive breeding, such as in zoos and wildlife parks, where individuals are taken into captivity, encouraged to breed, prepared for the wild, and then released back into the wild habitat.
• Disadvantages of seed banks include damage during storage which may not germinate, reducing viability.
• Seed banks do not allow for evolution or adaptation to changing environments.
• Ex-situ conservation in seed banks means the habitat is still under threat.
• Some plants do not reproduce with seeds, limiting the gene pool being stored in seed banks.
• Advantages of ex-situ conservation include its success and the ability to raise awareness and money for ex-situ and in-situ projects.
• Disadvantages of ex-situ conservation include not addressing threats such as habitat destruction and poaching.
• In-situ conservation is conducted in the habitat, and includes activities like habitat restoration, species reintroduction, and education.
• Threatened species often have small populations, face threats such as habitat destruction, habitat change, deliberate exploitation, introduction of non-native species, and change in abiotic factors beyond the range of tolerance.
• K-selected species, which have a life strategy of surviving in small populations, are often found in threatened species.
• Low reproductive potential is often found in threatened species.
• Vaquita, a tiny porpoise, is a threatened species that often drowns after becoming entangled in illegal gill nets used by fishermen in Mexican waters.
• Black rhino lost 96% of its population to poaching between 1970 and 1992.
• Mountain gorilla has an approximate population of 800.
• Amur leopard is critically endangered due to habitat loss, poaching, and global climate change.
• Javan rhinoceros has 40-60 animals remaining in Ujung Kulon National Park and is hunted to near-extinction for its horn, which is used to make Asian medicines.
• Problems keeping animals in captivity include selecting breeding pairs with genetic variation, encouraging a suitable breeding environment, and releasing offspring back into the wild.
• Gene pools, inbreeding & studbooks
• Small populations result in low genetic diversity
• Limited range of tolerances to disease & climate
• Breeding programmes must avoid inbreeding & select unrelated individuals with different genetics
• Studbooks keep records of the organism's history & likely genetic variation
• The size of the breeding environment is too large to house, provide enough space for an animal like a blue whale.
• Meeting the species needs includes food requirements for animals like ant eaters and pandas, and complex interspecies relationships like the large blue butterfly that must overwinter in an ants nest.
• Environmental breeding triggers required include temperature and daylight hours, and space for courtship displays like flamingos and white rhino, which requires many females to become aroused.
• Increasing the success of breeding in captivity includes artificial insemination, mimicking environmental triggers like flamingos mate more successfully in large numbers, and mirrors can be used in the enclosure to mimic a larger population.
• Release into the wild can be problematic due to a lack of a suitable habitat, the original threat still exists or completely destroyed, lack of natural skills like inability to recognize food or predators, lack of hunting skills, difficulty integrating into social groups, and more.
• Increasing the success of re-introduction programme includes chicks born in captivity being fed by people wearing puppets of adults on their arms, while blocking the rest of their body from view with a partition, and a gradual release and intervention strategy.
• Plants are important in ex-situ conservation as they provide seeds for genetic diversity, and if plants become extinct, we have the seeds to germinate.
• As our environment changes, different plants will thrive due to different range of tolerances, and our current crop species may not tolerate a hotter, drier climate in the future.
• We will need to cross breed or cultivate new species which can tolerate it.
• The Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen is a seed bank, and Kew gardens also has a seed bank.