@BennettL, I agree fully with your apparent frustration at the lack of will power and determination to make something of a breeding group, especially of a critically endangered taxon like the onager.
BTW: the Tilburg male is genetically very important as his genes have only become well represented in the Israeli wild ass group that was assembled in Hai Bar in Israel. Unfortunately, due to misidentification separate imports of onager (the Tilburg line) and kulan (a later date import) meant all current Israeli stock is hopelessly hybridized.
Whereas, this is touted as a conservation success story locally, however regionally and for all former (Syrian onager) known wild ass occurrence in Israel and other neighboring ex range states the ecological niche establishment of a sister taxon here … Well, it is a bit of an embarassment!!! Allthough, to be fair the methods and procedures and the overall model fully conforms to IUCN reintroduction baseline criteria. Just if ever a regional wild ass reestablishment became a reality in the Near East they represent an ecological risk of polluting the a portion of the currently extant Persian onager gene pool!
It would be interesting from a genetics / population parameters perspective how genetically important the current European and North American stocks of Persian onager to in situ conservation might be. And vice versa, for new founder stock to enter the small EAZA and AZA stocks.
At the end of the day for the TWPZ stock (whatever is left …, I have no details either), I would still favor … if the ZAA and South Australian zoos are reluctant to have an Antipodes wild ass conservation breeding program that instead of losing their genes and have them go extinct on phase out policy - a feat I frequently find a bit outmoded given the historical, as most certainly the current and future expected biodiversity losses, so we can ill afforded as a zoo conservation community to actually do this … - that they have the foresight to send them overseas to either the AZA or EAZA region, whichever is the politically and logistically most realistic and expedient.
BTW: the Tilburg male is genetically very important as his genes have only become well represented in the Israeli wild ass group that was assembled in Hai Bar in Israel. Unfortunately, due to misidentification separate imports of onager (the Tilburg line) and kulan (a later date import) meant all current Israeli stock is hopelessly hybridized.
Whereas, this is touted as a conservation success story locally, however regionally and for all former (Syrian onager) known wild ass occurrence in Israel and other neighboring ex range states the ecological niche establishment of a sister taxon here … Well, it is a bit of an embarassment!!! Allthough, to be fair the methods and procedures and the overall model fully conforms to IUCN reintroduction baseline criteria. Just if ever a regional wild ass reestablishment became a reality in the Near East they represent an ecological risk of polluting the a portion of the currently extant Persian onager gene pool!
It would be interesting from a genetics / population parameters perspective how genetically important the current European and North American stocks of Persian onager to in situ conservation might be. And vice versa, for new founder stock to enter the small EAZA and AZA stocks.
At the end of the day for the TWPZ stock (whatever is left …, I have no details either), I would still favor … if the ZAA and South Australian zoos are reluctant to have an Antipodes wild ass conservation breeding program that instead of losing their genes and have them go extinct on phase out policy - a feat I frequently find a bit outmoded given the historical, as most certainly the current and future expected biodiversity losses, so we can ill afforded as a zoo conservation community to actually do this … - that they have the foresight to send them overseas to either the AZA or EAZA region, whichever is the politically and logistically most realistic and expedient.
