IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Flesness, N.R.; Foose, T.J. | |
| The role of captive breeding in the conservation of species (Guest Essay) | |
| 1990 Book Chapter | |
What is the possible role of captive breeding programs for one or two thousand species?. One answer comes from the non-random pattern of the extinctions we are seeing. Though we are losing many uniquely adapted mice species, "mice" as a broad guild of creature, will certainly survive the next century or two. So will fox and coyote, thanks in part to the mice. But the larger carnivores - the grizzly, the tiger, the lion, the condor, the crocodile and crane, need larger and wilder space. Most such species are or will be at risk. The large herbivores - the rhino, elephants, desert antelopes, etc. not only need large areas of habitat but are commonly eliminated by human activity even before their habitat is. High cash value wild plants, such as orchids or exotic tropical hardwood trees are disappearing because of excessive harvest, not herbivores. Life forms that are large, slow-reproducing, insular, specialized for climax ecosystems, or have high cash value of harvest, are much less likely to be a part of the future ecology of the planet. |
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(c) IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group ( IUCN - The World Conservation Union) |