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Snyder, N.F.R.; Derrickson, S.R.; Beissinger, S.R.; Wiley, J.W.; Smith, T.B.; Toone, W.D.; Miller, B.
Limitations of Captive Breeding: Reply to Gippoliti and Carpaneto
1997 Conservation Biology (11): 808-810
Gippoliti and Carpaneto argue correctly that techniques for captive breeding of endangered species have been improving in recent years, a point we also made. Our assertion that adequate success in captive breeding has remained elusive for many endangered taxa, however, de spite major expenditures of resource in some cases, remains valid. Gippoliti and Carpaneto do not comment on the disease risks posed by ex situ captive breeding, which are of substantial but generally unpublicized importance. We suggest that captive breeding has been invoked far too frequently as a recovery measure for species that do not need it and that much of the argument about the expense of in-country captive breeding evaporates when efforts are limited to species that have no other viable short-term options for survival.
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