Captive breeding to wild quick question

Carl Jones said:
The issues around the conservation of the Hen Harrier are related to the management of grouse moors. I recommend you read the book Inglorious by Mark Avery, where he goes into many of the issues involved. Hen Harriers are doing better in Wales where the level of persecution is less.

If a reintroduction project was necessary there are more effective methods than captive breeding, for obtaining young for release. A more effective technique would be to harvest first clutches of eggs from the wild birds for artificial incubation, hand rearing the young, and to use these for reintroduction. The adults would then lay a replacement clutches that they could be left to rear.
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Thank you for the information I will try and purchase the book.
 
Bristol Zoo bred water voles and released them in the Avonmouth area where they prospered and spread.
 
Marwell - Sand Lizards, Natterjack Toads, Scimitar-Horned Oryx, Roan Antelope and Przewalskiis Wild Horse . All bred at Marwell for release into the wild over the years.
 
ZSL Whipsnade with corncrakes; and London with fen raft spiders and field crickets. Other reintroduction projects in the pipeline (eg mountain chicken frogs to Monserrat).
 
Carl Jones said:
Good point. The ideal is to have a population in Brazil where they can be bred and their young released. Moving birds from the Middle East to Brazil for a reintroduction project is problematic.

The Spix Macaw example is not typical and some of the birds do apparently have health issues related to their histories in mixed collections of exotic parrots.
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This is actually happening, where Al-Wabra financed a facility and helped the Brazilians in managing their macaws. This actually led to the hatching of 2 chicks in 2014, which was for the first time in ages. The idea is to reallocate more birds towards Brazil in the future.

And the health issues are taken into account in the management of the population.
 
lintworm said:
Though not impossible and I would rather have them in a place where they are completely safe and where a lot of knowhow is present. I imagine the risk of theft is much higher in Brazil then it is in UAE.


These large distance re-introductions can be successful though, Burgers Zoo in the Netherlands is sending captive bred white-tailed eagles to Israel almost yearly for re-introduction. Off course they are first kept in captivity in Israel first to let them adapt.


@Carl Jones, I really appreciate your input in these discussions! I am curious what you think of HWP's current program to prepare Amur leopards for re-introduction, as they are far away from the potential re-introduction site, but it is one of the iconic animals that zoos use to promote/validate ex-situ conservation and for this subspecies every individual counts...
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Of course there are many examples of reintroductions of species across continental borders and one can see that this will be necessary into the future. However if you look at the results the most effective reintroductions are those where the captive breeding occurrs close to the release site so there can be a fluid movement of animals to and from the captive facility to the wild.
 
Marwell also sent Golden Lion Tamarins back to the wild (possibly Golden -headed too , but cant remember).
Belfast - White-tailed Sea Eagle.

Two closed collections;
Norfolk Wildlife Park bred for release a whole host of species from Eagle Owls to Pheasants.
Riber Castle also bred for release several native species.
 
It's been a couple of years since this thread was updated, but there are a number of other cases I have found:

- As well as the reintroduction to the Nene Washes done in coordination with ZSL and RSPB, Pensthorpe Nature Park have been running a second corncrake reintroduction to the Wensum Valley since 2015, with birds already returning to the site:
The Return of the Corn Crake to the Wensum Valley | Wensum Valley Birdwatching Society

- Colchester Zoo have been captive-breeding Fischer's estuarine moths for introduction to new sites safe from sea level rises on the Essex coast:
Fisher’s Estuarine Moth Breeding Programme - Action for the Wild

- Several zoos in Germany have been breeding ferruginous ducks for reintroduction to Steinhuder Meer in Lower Saxony. Information about this and several other European zoo-led reintroductions are included in this EAZA Zooquaria edition:
https://www.eaza.net/assets/Uploads/Zooquaria/Zooquaria-87-LR.pdf
 
The fact that there is a healthy European eagle-owl population in Germany is due to the re-introduction of captive-bred birds. In the 1970s - 1980s a number of Dutch ( Artis - Amsterdam and Dierenpark Wassenaar ( now closed )and German zoos send on a yearly-base captive-bred birds to several release sites and althrough the mortality was quite high the species re-established in those areas and now is even spreading to other areas, even in the Netherlands the species is breeding again :).
 
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