Conservation Triage

I find this quite an interesting question as I believe that part of the problem with some conservation ideas focus on individual species rather than focusing on conserving the habitat. By conserving the habitat you will save many more species than if you conserve the animals in captivity. Personally I think we should focus on the bigger picture, as the people in the article say there is little point saving a species if there is nowhere for them to go.

As for the pandas, as far as I am aware (and I may well be wrong) they now have large numbers in captivity and have probably been saved from extinction in terms of there being animals left on the planet (not necessarily wild ones).
 
The thing about conservation is that most of it is done by people who are passionate about particular species and ecosystems and care enough to dedicate their time and money to helping keep them alive. The degree to which species and ecosystems will be conserved is the degree to which people care about them. It took me a long time to figure this out as I found myself trying to develop a scientific career that had almost nothing to do with the conservation of the species (giraffes) that I embarked on the scientific mission to conserve to begin with.

I bring this up because many conservationists are scientists, but surveys like this are often targeting the wrong people in as far as academia (where most professional scientists operate) is not a place where most real conservation gets done (even though they think it is). If someone wants to conserve a species then they need to make other people care about it. An academic opinion on whether some theoretical species program should be abandoned because an economic model indicates it should is fairly worthless if people actually care about conserving a species or ecosystem.
 
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Pandas - we should leave it to China to conserve them. China is now the second economic power of the world, and should pay in full for the conservation of its own natural heritage.

Tigers and rhinos - completely the opposite. Most tiger range countries do not have enough money to pay for their protection. Moreover, they are endangered precisely because of the demand in China, driven by a superstitious, but increasingly affluent minority - a consumer base that is still numerous enough to wipe out all the existing tigers, rhinos, snow leopards, pangolins, otters, turtles, elephants, gaurs, banteng - and pretty much all large wildlife in Asia - many times over.

Secondly, tigers are "umbrella species", requiring large tracts of habitat; consequently, by saving wild tigers, most other species of animals, plants and fungi within those forests, as well as clean waterways, are also preserved.

Thirdly, tigers, elephants and lions are probably the most charismatic animals on Earth, well known to all people, used for marketing brands and products, names and nicknames (from the President of China Hu Jintao - Hu meaning "tiger", to Tiger Woods), political parties (the Republican elephant for example), common language expressions (elephant in the room, lion's share etc.), names of military units, sports teams and many other symbols...

So, if we cannot save tigers, well, I do not think that we will be able to save most other species that will undoubtedly follow.
 
I'm afraid we need to have a reality check about which species should be saved.

I believe in the ISIS philosophy of keeping about 80 captive individuals of as many species of large vertebrates as we can. The individuals should be as genetically diverse as possible and should be kept in natural social groups, where possible. This may mean keeping 8 groups of 10 individuals of some social species or even 4 groups of 20, while solitary species may be kept in more zoos. This is especially true for species that will never return to the wild.

No matter how much Saola likes tigers, lions and elephants, these animals take up a lot of space in captivity and will be very expensive to return to the wild, even if there is suitable space available. As captive tigers and lions are fed on dead meat, I think there would be massive problems in reintroducing them into the wild, especially if they associated people with food. I suspect that they would kill people and their livestock, rather than adapting to hunt suitable prey. There are thousands of captive tigers and lions, over 600 Asian elephants and 286 African bush elephants. The only species with a low captive population is the African forest elephant, represented by one individual. If we honestly want to save wild populations of lions, tigers and elephants, we need to work with local people and save wild habitats. We don't need to breed any more tigers, lions, Asian elephants or African bush elephants in zoos. Zoos have already saved these animals from extinction.

From Saola's list, I would much prefer to save pangolins and I would like to save saolas as well. I can foresee a time when many obscure critically endangered animals in zoos die out and the species will also be extinct in the wild. I would advise any Zoo Chatter to visit the Hall of Extinct and Endangered Animals in Paris's Grand Museum of Evolution, then use Zootierliste to find that some of the extinct animals were kept in European zoos, but were not saved from extinction.

We should save as much natural habitat as possible and breed as many species of endangered animals in captivity. If these animals can be released into the wild, release them. If they can't we should cap the number of individuals kept in captivity, by cutting the breeding programmes and putting more emphasis on species that are currently being unjustly ignored.
 
Thanks God that Chinese implemented bold program to create and protect panda reserves and the panda is currently reasonably secure in the wild!

If they were reading misinformed articles, they might well conclude that they waste their time. I am waiting for UK to be similarly successful in restoring its native brown bears.
 
I´m surprised that no one mentioned Polar Bears. Because no matter how hard and expensive it is to protect a habitat like rainforest, it´s still much easier than to stop ice from melting.

Anyway, I agree with what was said above - we need the flag species like tigers and rhinos, because by protecting their habitat we are protecting all the animals and plants living in the area.

And I don´t like this BBC article. I´ve said it in some other thread before and I still insist on that opinion - we can´t afford to let the pessimism out, we can´t tell people, that a species is doomed and we should stop trying to save it. It´s like telling people - "don´t send us donations anymore, there´s no point, we gave up..."
 
I believe that Dassie rat and I have more similar viewpoints than it appears.

More precisely, when talking about tigers, elephants, gorillas and other wide-ranging mammals, I was referring to In situ conservation, and the preservation of habitats.
Habitat conservation is the first and foremost goal here, and I see that we agree on that.

The tropics are incredibly rich environments, and zoos cannot hope to preserve even a fraction of the biodiversity that is present in those habitats.
For example, Indo-Burma has something like 13,500 species of plants (7,000 of that endemic), 433 mammal species, 1,233 birds, 522 reptiles, 286 amphibians, 1,262 freshwater fishes, and God knows how many species of insects, fungi, bacteria etc. (source: Conservation international Biodiversity Hotspots - Indo Burma - Unique Biodiversity )
For comparison, Europe has 270 mammal species, 800 bird species (445 breeding), 123 reptiles, 75 amphibians and 344 freshwater fishes.
Alternatively, we may compare bird species numbers: 3,200 in South America, 2,900 in Asia, 2,300 in Africa, 2,000 in North and Central America, 1,700 in Australia and the surrounding islands...
Another example is the biodiversity of the Amazon: the basin of that river alone has more species of fish than the entire Atlantic ocean.

However, when we talk about In situ conservation, preserving charismatic, wide ranging animals like tigers, lions, elephants and gorillas is not an unnecessary drain on the resources; quite the opposite, it enables saving a whole range of species that share the same habitats. An average Asian or African rainforest has probably more species than all of the Pacific islands combined.

On the other hand, if we talk about Ex situ conservation, I also agree - unlike ungulates, fish, amphibians, birds or most other wildlife, large predators are almost impossible to return to the wild. Their maintenance is expensive, but on the other hand they are a major attraction of any zoo, and as such in many cases contribute towards fundraising for In situ conservation.
One solution would be to preserve as much genetic material from different individuals as possible (it is already done in a few facilities, so called "Frozen Zoos"), but a certain number of live specimens will always be necessary, as those samples, if they are ever used, will need a host.


edit: as Stefka said, it is still much easier to protect a rainforest than to stop ice from melting.

Giving up is dangerous, it just means that it will be easier to give up with the next, less well known species in line, and that conservation funding will gradually diminish.
 
Thanks Saola

I agree that there is a problem about matching the expectations of the public and conserving endangered animals. I visited Plzen Zoo in March and saw several species that are either unique to this zoo or are held in relatively few collections. I liked seeing the dusky pademelon and big-headed turtle, but I advise anyone visiting European zoos to print out the relevant species list from Zootierliste, as it makes it a lot easier to work out what you've seen.

Many of Plzen's other specialist species were small mammals that would probably not interest many visitors - several species and subspecies of spiny mouse look very similar after a time. I agree with you that most visitors probably want to see the ABC species, but if the less charismatic species were displayed along with interesting information, it may encourage more people to be interested in them. I must admit that when I'm zoo volunteering, I prefer to listen to visitors who want to see uakaris, freshwater stingrays and aye-ayes, rather than lions, tigers, elephants and giraffes. Zoos should be trying to foster an interest in a wider range of species than they are at present. I enjoyed my visit to Shepreth Wildlife Park last year, where there are several displays trying to encourage visitors to join various conservation organisations.

I just hope that zoos can start breeding more unusual endangered species and saving them from extinction, rather than adding to the large captive collections of species that are already safe.
 
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