Translocations: Providing Outcomes for Wildlife, Resource Managers, Scientists, and the Human Community

Abstract

The World Conservation Union (1987) defines a translocation as a release of animals with the intention of establishing, reestablishing, or augmenting an existing population. Despite frequent use as a tool for the management of threatened and endangered wildlife, the full benefits of translocations often go unrealized. In this article, I demonstrate how translocations can achieve outputs for conservation management, conservation science, and the wider human community, using North Island (NI) Saddleback or Tieke (Philesturnus rufusater) as an illustrative example. From a conservation management perspective, NI Saddleback have been salvaged from a relic population of less than 500 birds on 484-ha Hen Island to a metapopulation of approximately 6,000 birds on 13 offshore islands and at two mainland New Zealand sites. These translocations have reduced the risk of global extinction for this species and helped restore the ecosystems involved. All these translocations have occurred in the past 42 years from known source populations and with known numbers of birds released. The resulting replicated serial population bottlenecks provide numerous scientific opportunities for conservation and biological research. Although the first Saddleback translocations were to reserves closed to the public, subsequent translocations have been to open reserves, providing the wider human community with an opportunity to see and be actively involved in the management of a threatened endemic species. This has raised the profile of both NI Saddleback and other species and has provided wider community conservation benefits. These three outputs illustrate the value of translocations for resource management and conservation science and for increasing community interest, participation, and investment in biological conservation.

Biodiversity gains from efficient use of private sponsorship for flagship species conservation

“…These species are a subset of 22 species that have subsequently been identified as 'national iconic' species by the NZ DOC, based on an independently run telephone survey of 3000 adult New Zealanders that was stratified and post-weighted according to census data, by age group, ethnicity and gender (NZ DOC 2011, unpublished data). It should be noted that additional initiatives to conserve threatened landscapes and species (including flagship species such as those in this case study) also exist in NZ [20,21]. We use the National Partnerships as realistic examples to examine the potential benefits of national-scale, species-specific private sponsorship programmes for flagship species.…”

The Community-Conservation Conundrum: Is Citizen Science the Answer?

“…For approved species translocations in New Zealand during the period of 2002-2012, community participation increased from 16% to 71% [46]. Community groups are unlikely to be fully aware of the complexity of undertaking translocations [47], although community participation in translocations is now considered to be an essential component of conservation advocacy [29,48].…”

Wilderness protected areas : management guidelines for IUCN category 1b protected areas

“…Where species interventions are deemed necessary and beneficial, these should be based on best-available scientific evidence, use appropriate genetic stock and as far as is possible minimize the stress to the individual animals. Capture and release programmes have been shown as one way of ensuring meta populations survive in new and suitable habitat areas (Parker, 2008). Captive breeding programmes for especially rare and endangered species have been successful in maintaining and increasing the numbers of individuals in a species population.…”