I don't see much in Ara's comments at all about people questioning that hand-reared animals cannot breed (and I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with him/her)- I think some of the members of the forum are attempting to simplistically categorise two "groups" of tigers - hands-on and hands-off. Frankly, at a high level, this is no different to the way elephants are managed in zoos, but let's not digress.
The concern I have is not at all related to the ability of conditioned animals to breed. As you say ptig, we all know this isn't the issue. What concerns me is the availability of conditioned animals to the remaining breeding population of tigers in the region. I am very concerned that the hands-on zoos will invest many resources (time, financial and staff) into conditioning their animals for their respective presentations - this is essential if these hands-on animals are to be managed effectively. But will those zoos willingly make their conditioned animals available to other zoos for breeding, if recommended by the species coordinator? I suspect that these institutions would very much prefer to have any recommended pairings happen at their institutions, rather than send a conditioned animal to another institution for breeding.
Again, this in itself might not be a major issue, except for the zoos that have only one or two tigers for display, but are unable to obtain suitable mates for pairing, since the suitable mates are now conditioned, and the institutions that work with them might be unlikely to send them away after investing so many resources in them.
And then there's the offspring that are born to these recommended pairings in the zoos that use them for conditioning - are we likely to see an increased desire for offspring that are born at these institutions to be hand-raised, and eventually used for presentations, like one or both of their parents? This could lead to resistance to sending those animals to other zoos for breeding, and so the cycle continues.
Zoo_Boy raises an interesting question - even thought it mgith eb somewhat impractical, might it be better to use all of the subspecies hybrids for hands-on work, and maintain the endangered Sumatruns tigers purely for the regional breeding program? The average punter that goes to Dreamworld and Australia Zoo sees (or interacts) with a tiger, and 99% of them would have no idea whether the individual tiger they see or interact with is a Sumatran tiger or a generic tiger. All of thes stories and interps that are used at these institutions can still talk about the plight of all tigers in the world, as I'm sure they do already, but we ensure the viability and availability of pure Sumatran tigers to the regional/international breeding program. There are of course some flaws in this idea too, but it's worth thinking about.
This is a complex discussion, and it will be difficult to balance the needs of the zoos that want to use tigers for presentations, with the need to manage a viable regional breeding program for pure Sumatran tigers, especially because of the lack of available animals. Discussions are underway with the major players in this issue to come up with some regional guidelines for this, and hopefully, when they have been finalised and adopted, all of the institutions that wish to hold and/or breed tigers, for display or for presentations, will be able to do so effectively. But more than anything else, regional cooperation, more than possibly over-zealous institutional needs, will be what determines whether we are successful as a region with this program.
My 2 cents worth.
