Can the Gobi Bear be Saved?

[animalszoos]

Interesting article on saving the worlds rarest bear: Can World's Rarest Bear Be Saved?

What do you think?
Could they live in captivity and how would they do?
Have any gobi bears lived in captivity?

 

[jibster]

Interesting article on saving the worlds rarest bear: Can World's Rarest Bear Be Saved?

What do you think?
Could they live in captivity and how would they do?
Have any gobi bears lived in captivity?

I don't doubt that gobi bears could be kept and bred in captivity, but I doubt that such a plan would be seriously considered unless a decision were made to pull the entire remaining population into captivity. At this point, the numbers are so low that maintaining a healthy level of genetic diversity in any captive population would be difficult to do, and the removal of any of the few remaining bears could potentially doom the long-term survival of any of the remaining wild population. As the article you linked to points out:

"Neither an extremely low population density nor a limited gene pool was preventing Gobi grizzlies from reproducing. This was crucial to know, since the alternative would be to take bears in from the wild for captive breeding. Bears might multiply in an artificial setting, but how would those born and reared there know where to find widely scattered sources of water and food when released back into the uncompromising Gobi?"