Quagga Breeding Project.

P

Pertinax

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I think this has been talked about before, but we seem to have a lot of new members recently and some might like to air their views on the rebreeding of Quagga 'lookalikes' (as I'll call them) in South Africa. Will we see recreated Quaggas living in our zoos one day- and like the Tarpan and Aurochs, how close to the real thing can they eventually be?

If you look on the Quagga Project's website, there are photos of the latest attempts to recreate Quaggas. One animal from the latest generation does have a marked reduction of stripes on its body, with no stripes on the hindparts at all, white legs and a creamy-buff ground colour.

However, they still look to me more like stripeless white zebras than Quaggas.. The real Quagga had a dark chestnut body colour which is so far lacking- how will they infuse that? Also, the current zebras all retain a broad black and white striping pattern on their heads and necks. The original Quagga's neck stripes were quite different- narrow bands of white (more like a Bongo's) on the dark brown background.

At present they seem to be creating an 'optical illusion' rather than a zebra that genuinly resembles the Quagga in its colour and markings. Things may change though with further generations. What do others think?
 
I've always thought this was a stupid idea in the first place. At least the aurochs and tarpan projects made some sense in that domestic cattle and horses are derived from those species. Recreating quagga involves only creating cheap copies from other zebra subspecies. Why not put the effort into preserving real animals? That's my two cents worth
 
Chlidonias said:
At least the aurochs and tarpan projects made some sense in that domestic cattle and horses are derived from those species. Recreating quagga involves only creating cheap copies from other zebra subspecies.
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domestic cattle and horses are derived from aurochs and tarpans it is likely true, but they are lot more genetically manipulated than the final re-bred quaggas will be. in other words, when it comes to the genetic difference between a re-bred quagga and the real quagga vs the genetic difference between a neo aurochs and teh true one, you'd probably find the "quaggas" are genetically more like their original counterparts than the aurochs are.

in fact modern domestic cattle are likely made up of two distinct species bos indicus and bos taurus and a whole lotta hybrids. i'm not sure how (but not saying it hasn't been done) how much research has truly gone into establishing the gentic map of the true aurochs, as i have read conflicting material on the origins of the aurochs and the status of teh two species of domestic cattle.

i also find it likely that the tarpan was much closer to mongolian wild horses in form (id'e say it was one and the same species in fact) than it was to the domestic variety, which was used in conjunction with wild horses to produce the modern tarpan.

i'm not a geneticist, but i do know domesticated animals are thousands of years removed from their wild ancestors (think about how many genrations that is..)

so far the the quaggas are but a handful.
 
I don't myself think the recreated aurochs and tarpan are "true" aurochs and tarpan, however much the creators of them may say that they are, but at least they had a leg to stand on. The "recreated" quagga I think is just a window-dressing quagga.
 
i don't understand how you distinguish the two examples.

please explain to me thow one "has a leg to stand on" and the other not?

both involve selective breeding to make one subspecies appear as if it were another extinct form.
 
what I'm saying is that the creators of the aurochs and tarpan were trying to breed back from the descendants of the wild ancestor species. Bos taurus and Bos indicus may be considered separate species now (or merely subspecies or not even that, depending on point of view, whether you're a splitter or lumper, etc etc) but at the time they were recreating the aurochs there was only considered to be one species, Bos taurus (of which the zebu was an eastern derivitive). They chose the most "original" looking descendant specimens (as they saw it) to recreate the beast. Same goes for the tarpan, which may or may not be the same as Przewalski's horse. That's what I meant by "leg to stand on". They were doing what they did with the knowledge they had at the time.

The quagga on the other hand is not being "bred back" from descendant individuals, but from other subspecies entirely. The aim appears to be to end up with not a quagga but a look-a-like quagga, which isn't what the aurochs and tarpan breeders thought they were doing.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that the aurochs and tarpan attempt seemed to be legitimate to the initiators, while the quagga is an attempt to create a "copy quagga".
 
I think the situation with the Quagga is the reverse of the Aurochs and Tarpan. With those they had the 'wild' colouration cropping up in the domestic descendants. They then used these to recreate animals with the other characteristics of the imagined wild animal.

With the Quagga they still have the wild animal- common zebra- but the colour scheme is 'extinct'. If all the genes to recreate the colour aren't present in existing zebras, its probably impossible. So far they have only produced 'freak' zebras, not Quaggas. However, the rebreeding continues and it may take a long time to prove if its possible or not.
 
My argument has always been, in relation to an austrlian example of clonning the tylnacine, has been, why WASTE resources on breeding/clonning animals gone, when we need to concentrate on the species that are creently sliding into that extinct status. Lets learn from our paste mistakes, let them lie, and be forever a nasty and constant reminder, in the hope it never happens again.
 
Zoo_Boy - because the money and resources that went into the thylacine project, and no doubt the money that goes into the quagga project would not have been allocated to conservation.

zoos allocate their resources into breeding wild animals so it makes sense that they choose endangered species. the quagga progect isn't about that, so theres no point suggesting they should instead breed mongolian wild horses, thats not what its about.

to me its about the same as telling a farmer that he should instead breed rare antelope and stop breeding cattle since the antelope are endangered and cattle not. but that goes against teh very foundation of the project.

i 100% supported the thylacine project and i'm indifferent to the quagga one. its not a massively resource intensive plan. someone is selective breeding some zebras to recreate a colour form that was extinct. big deal. there not a zoo, they are not a conservation body. they are not eating up conservation resources and the animals have nothing wrong with them. they are true zebras, just as the quagga was. not mutants.

as for the chlidonias comments, we may have to agree to disagree :). your argument doesn't make a lotta sense to me because i think it ignoresthe fact that domestic horses and cattle are further removed from their wild ancestors than two seperate subspecies of zebra are. the modern "aurochs" is no more an aurochs as the quagga project zebras are quaggas.
 
patrick said:
Zoo_Boy - because the money and resources that went into the thylacine project, and no doubt the money that goes into the quagga project would not have been allocated to conservation.
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This is why I also supported the thylacine project, the money was not going to be channeled into conservation if the cloning didn't go ahead.
 
Maybe, but still in my beleif it is sending the wrong message. Those who are allocating the resources/funding, should take a very close look at other endagered marsupials plights.
 
patrick said:
someone is selective breeding some zebras to recreate a colour form that was extinct. big deal. there not a zoo, they are not a conservation body

the modern "aurochs" is no more an aurochs as the quagga project zebras are quaggas.
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Yes, they are a private set of individuals who have this one aim- to recreate a 'lost' species(technically a subspecies, or even 'race') My point is not whether they would be better spending the money on other projects, but can this one be successful.

As someone said, the Quagga project zebras are far fewer generations removed from the original than the situation with Tarpan or Aurochs. IF they can recreate the 'correct' colour and markings then I would say they have genuinly resurrected the Quagga 'form' of Plains Zebra.
 
Zoo_Boy said:
Maybe, but still in my beleif it is sending the wrong message. Those who are allocating the resources/funding, should take a very close look at other endagered marsupials plights.
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why? what obligation do some scientists wanting to ressurect the thylacine have to other endangered marsupials?

about the same as the coca-cola company as far as i'm concerned.

see your missing the point somewhat. the quagga project, the thylacine project. they are not funded by conservation bodies. their aim is not to preserve the worlds fauna, just recreate one memeber of such. they have no more an obligation to saving animals than any other organisation on the planet.

in regards to sending the wrong message. i assume you mean that they give the public the idea that if we can bring back extinct species we need not need to conserve species currently.

in all honesty Zoo_Boy most people on the planet have only a very mild interest in animals at best. take my mate for example. he has grown up with a stepfather and best friend who are both animal obsessives. he was raised in a house full of chickens, dogs, cats and parrots.

he loves animals. but he doesn't really know anything about them. he doesn't read about them like his stepfather and best mate does. he had no idea the yangtzee river dolphin went extinct and had forgotten about it five minutes after he overheard his stepfather and i having a discussion about it.

my point - even with the most animal-intensive upbringing many people just arn't THAT interested in nature as we all are. and thats why everything is going extinct. if everyone found nature facinating we would probably preserve an aweful lot more of it. tell them we can bring em back or tell them we can't and things will still go extinct. in the greater context what we need to do is convince people that biodiversity, not a species of marsupial, is going to keep their planet and therfore them, healthy.

i guess what i'm trying to say is this. theres no point worrying about giving people the wrong idea that we can recreate extinct animals as if it will encourage people be less concerned about them. people will make animals extinct regardless - we have been doing it for centuries. little factors like that are the least of our issues.

probably best to concentrate on changing attitudes to deforestation, by convincing people that regardless of what lives in there, they need the forests to breathe...
 
Patrick, what i am saying is we should be encouraging the conservation of species, rather than highlighting the afcts of re-creating a species. People not understanding, not knowing about aniamls is why we have problems to begin with. What i am saying is that people need to be mroe educated, and thats why we shouldn't encourage these programs.

Though i 100% agree with you that people are very self centred, and conservation needs to be aimed at whats the advantage to the average joe, hence biodiversity and habitat - rainforest - conservation.
 
yes i understand what you are saying, but using that argument to denouce the thylacine project doesn't make sense to me.

when you say "we should be encouraging the conservation of species..."
who do you mean by "we"?

me? you? zoos? the australian museum or museum of south africa (who created the thylacine and quagga projects respectively)?

who else? exxon-mobil? mcdonalds? the commonwealth bank?

if the taronga zoo or WWF was funding the breeding of "quaggas" or cloning thylacines it would make sense to me to criticise them. indeed i would no doubt join teh chorus. but they are not. and the museum funds an awful lot of projects that have nothing to do with conservation at all. becuse thats not just what museums are about.

the thylacine project was not a conservation project in the traditional sense. so it's not fair to critque it as such.

can i take a guess and say this has as much to do with your distaste for cloning that anything else?
 
i dont agree with clonning, you are correct, but i dont strongly support any other 're-creating' of species either. what point does it have? why do we need mroe thylancines, why do we need quaggas, i my slef love the quagga, i think it was a beautiful animals, but thats it, it WAS, not any more.

I defintally undersatnd your point patrick, it's not a zoo, or wwf, but rather a institute not interested in conservation as such we speak of it as.

i think for any conservation to work, 'we' means every body, to re-create a species, the parties invloved should have an udnerstanding of how a species became exticnt, and it's conservation value. Mueseums, much like zoos, are there to show the past, present and futture, but i belive mueseums should understand on the same level of zoos the plight of species. So IN MY OPINION, they should not waste resources on unwarrented projects such as clonning or selective breeding. But in the end, as i have voiced before, it's all about money, no doubt people will travel to a muesum to see a live thylacine, or to a tasmanian reserve to see a live animal, as will zoos to purchase these animals. i think it's rediculous.

And again, this is only my opinion, and i defintally see your side of the argument. the money is not for conservation anyway, so whats the problem. if i cans ee any light in this, maybe if we do have quaggas and thylancines, maybe we will have some protetced land for these aniamls to live in, and in-turn be an umbrella species for protecting other species in africa and the tasmanian wilderness, even if there is hindreds of tourists traulling in.
 
One positive aspect of the thylacine project is that it will generate press and what better way to get the message out at the same time! People have been preached to about conservation and the environment and sometimes we need to find new ways to get through to saturated minds.
 
so essentially you think we should keep the thylacine extinct on purpose to essentailly "teach ourselves a lesson"?

on the contrary i think an extant thylacine will do an aweful lot more for conservation than an extinct one will ever do. its represents a very important missing member of the australian ecoststem.

but since this about quaggas let me make this comparison..

compare teh breeding of white lions to the quagga project.

the quagga project is restocking plains zebra into their natural habitat in southern africa using selectively chosen/bred individuals that appear to contain the genetics for the coat that was historically ADVANTAGEOUS to plains zebras in the area.

breeidng of white lions on the otherhand (which you seem to be in favour of) is for the purpose of restocking african lions into southern africa using selectively bred individuals that contain a genetic mutation for a coat that was historically DISADVANTAGEOUS to lions in the area.

if you are to accuse only one of those projects of playing god surely it must be that of the white lions? the quagga project is mearly giving the reintroduced zebras a headstart on the colour morphs that they naturally evolved into. release a white lion and your trying to purposefully tip the balance in favour of the whites when it was and still is always the norm to be tawny.
 
That was a great website, but awfully depressing.
 
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