The use of captive breeding in species recovery has grown enormously in recent years, but without a concurrent growth in appreciation of its limitations. Problems with (1) establishing self‐sufficient captive populations, (2) poor success in reintroductions, (3) high costs, (4) domestication, (5) preemption of other recovery techniques, (6) disease outbreaks, and (7) maintaining administrative continuity have all been significant. The technique has often been invoked prematurely and should not normally be employed before a careful field evaluation of costs and benefits of all conservation alternatives has been accomplished and a determination made that captive breeding is essential for species survival. Merely demonstrating that a species’ population is declining or has fallen below what may be a minimum viable size does not constitute enough analysis to justify captive breeding as a recovery measure. Captive breeding should be viewed as a last resort in species recovery and not a prophylactic or long‐term solution because of the inexorable genetic and phenotypic changes that occur in captive environments. Captive breeding can play a crucial role in recovery of some species for which effective alternatives are unavailable in the short term. However, it should not displace habitat and ecosystem protection nor should it be invoked in the absence of comprehensive efforts to maintain or restore populations in wild habitats. Zoological institutions with captive breeding programs should operate under carefully defined conditions of disease prevention and genetic/behavioral management. More important, these institutions should help preserve biodiversity through their capacities for public education, professional training, research, and support of in situ conservation efforts.
Disease Control and Prevention, or the authors' affiliated institutions. Use of trade names is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by any of the groups named above.All material published in Emerging Infectious Diseases is in the public domain and may be used and reprinted without special permission; proper citation, however, is required.
Batrachotoxins are neurotoxic steroidal alkaloids first isolated from a Colombian poison-dart frog and later found in certain passerine birds of New Guinea. Neither vertebrate group is thought to produce the toxins de novo, but instead they likely sequester them from dietary sources. Here we describe the presence of high levels of batrachotoxins in a little-studied group of beetles, genus Choresine (family Melyridae). These small beetles and their high toxin concentrations suggest that they might provide a toxin source for the New Guinea birds. Stomach content analyses of Pitohui birds revealed Choresine beetles in the diet, as well as numerous other small beetles and arthropods. The family Melyridae is cosmopolitan, and relatives in Colombian rain forests of South America could be the source of the batrachotoxins found in the highly toxic Phyllobates frogs of that region.Pitohui ͉ Ifrita ͉ Phyllobates ͉ APCI mass spectrometry ͉ dietary arthropods
Population management programs recognize the importance of managing genetic diversity in species that are candidates for eventual reintroduction to natural habitats. The planned 1989 release of captive‐born Guam rails (Rallus owstoni), extinct in the wild since 1986, to the Northern Mariana island of Rota provides an opportunity to evaluate various management options for selecting breeders to produce young rails for release. Six options were compared to determine which one best replicated genetic diversity in the original captive founder population. Heterozygosity, allelic dimity, founder contribution, and founder genome equivalents were used as indicators of genetic diversity. Option 1: Randomly choose adults for breeding. Option 2: Choose the most fecund captive breeders. Option 3: Use allozyme data to choose parents that will produce the most genetically diverse chicks. Option 4: Choose pairs to equalize founder contribution in the population. Option 5: Choose pairs to maximize allelic diversity. Option 6: Choose pairs to maximize founder genome equivalents. Genetic management options based on pedigree analysis (#4, 5, 6) produced the most genetically diverse release populations for Rota. Managing founder genome equivalents produced a balance between equalizing founder contribution and maximizing allelic diversity, and provided the most genetically diverse population. Randomly selecting breeding pain, choosing the best captive breeding stock, or managing by allozyme data resulted in substantially reduced genetic diversity. Results illustrate that some of the most common approaches to population management or population reintroduction may produce significant loss of genetic diversity, whereas certain genetic management options may actually increase genetic diversity over current population levels.
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