A single zoo breeding Bitis parviocula doesn't guarantee that the species will "flourish" on the long run; if at all, it's the private (and moreover, the commercial) breeders who will take care of reproducing this species ex-situ (hopefully without going for morphs, scaleless mutations etc., but unfortunately also with a lot of false labelling regarding the actual origin of specimens).
Inbreeding depression can also be an issue in reptile husbandry, btw.
The problem Nikola tries to allude to might be that zoos seem to let others do the "dirty" work these days when it comes to acquiring new species, as specimen collection excursions are a thing of the past for most zoos. However, once someone else manages to obtain specimens or even establish a breeding population of a species new to captivity (usually in regard to anything but the charismatic mammalian megafauna), after a while zoos will get specimens from there (either by confiscation or by buying specimens from the commercial animal trade). If the original collector had all the right papers, it's all nice and legal (or is it?); but illegal acquisitions do occur, as illustrated by the aforementioned examples of Bitis parviocula or Brachylophus fasciatus. And this isn't a new thing, as the historic example of the reintroduction of the Alpine ibex illustrates.
Steinbock: Geraubt und gerettet - Beobachter
Is illegal animal smuggling therefore "Ok" if it might help ex-situ conservation? Nope.
But one might demur that the bureaucratic unreasonableness and lack of practical flexibility (and no, this is no euphemism for "baksheesh") in some countries with species that could benefit from selective professional ex-situ breeding (among many others, I'm looking at you, Brazil, and you, Guatemala, in regard to your lovely Helodermas...) rather fosters illegal animal smuggling instead of offering legal options. And this is certainly not restricted to wildlife and conservation; I've heard of reasonable scientists of federal institutes smuggling samples in and out of Brazil only to avoid the local red tape...
As for Carl Jones' hope that China will lose its grip on Giant Pandas (or Golden snub nosed monkeys-just ask LA Zoo...): not in the next years to come, given how much profit the "Panda industry" generates.
@DDCorvus: it's a noble thought, but it would deter most zoos from obtaining anything without a studbook, such as most fish, invertebrates, reptiles etc. And since only a not too vocal minority is aware that most larger sharks in public aquaria are commercially WC or that pretty much all Fiji iguanas outside Fiji are illegal, and even less of them care, zoos will have no incentive to change anything about that (unless they get fined, as SDZ employess were.)
