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| Balmford, A.; Leader-Williams, N.; Green, M.J.B. | |
| Parks or arks: where to conserve threatened mammals? | |
| 1995 Biodiversity and Conservation (4): 595-607 | |
Growing deterministic and stochastic threats to many wild populations of large vertebrates have focused attention on the conservation significance of captive breeding and subsequent reintroduction. However, work on both gorillas and black rhinos questions this shift in emphasis. In these species, field-based conservation can be effective if properly supported and, although this is not cheap, _per capita_ costs may still be considerably lower than for _ex situ_ propagation in captivity. Here we attempt to broaden the scope of this debate by contrasting the breeding success and costs of _in situ_ and captive programmes for a range of threatened mammals. Data are scarce, but we find that across nine large-bodied genera, _in situ_ conservation achieves comparable rates of population growth to those seen in established captive breeding programmes. Moreover, comparing budgets of well-protected reserves with zoos' estimates of maintenance costs and the costs of zoo adoption schemes, we find that _per capita_ costs for effective _in situ_ conservation are consistently lower than those of maintenance in captivity. Captive breeding may be more cost-effective for smaller-bodied taxa, and will often remain desirable for large mammals restricted to one or two vulnerable wild populations. However, our results, coupled with the fact that effective _in situ_ conservation protects intact ecosystems rather than single species, lead us to suggest that zoos might maximize their contribution to large mammal conservation by investing where possible in well-managed field-based initiatives, rather than establishing additional _ex situ_ breeding programmes. |
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