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Endangered Species Protection

Below are some important terms to understand to explain how captive breeding and reintroduction works:

• Ex situ conservation: Captive breeding, gene and seed banks, zoos, aquariums, and any other form of maintaining a species artificially out of the wild, as opposed to parks and habitat management that would be examples of in situ conservation.
• Introductions: Releasing captive or wild born animals where they never existed because the old habitat is gone or degraded, but a new similar habitat has been found.
• Reintroductions: Releasing captive born animals where they once existed with the hope that the original cause of population decline has been dealt with.
• Translocations: Moving wild-born animals from one place to another. This is done when the wild population is in imminent danger of extinction due to a change in the habitat and a different habitat has been decided to be adequate.

Endangered Species Protection

Add Info about IUCN The Endangered Species Act of 1973 gives the Secretary of the Interior the responsibility for determining whether to place an animal or plant on the Federal list of endangered and threatened species. This responsibility has been delegated to the Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. There are two different ways a species can end up on the list, through the petition process or through the candidate assessment process. The petition process allows any interested person to petition the Secretary of the Interior to add or remove a species from the Endangered or Threatened Species List, whereas the candidate assessment process involves Fish and Wildlife Service biologists identifying species to be added or removed from the list. The factors that are used to determine whether an animal should be added or removed from the list are:

• The present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of the species' habitat or range
• Overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes
• The inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms
• Other natural or manmade factors affecting the species' continued existence.

The current process for listing includes providing background information on the species, such as taxonomy, historic and current range, population information, habitat requirements, etc., a summary of the threats faced by the species, a determination and/or designation of critical habitat, examples of available conservation measures, and a preview of actions that would and would not be prohibited. A listed species receives protection from \"jeopardization from Federal activities, restrictions on take and trafficking, a requirement that the Fish and Wildlife Service develop and implement recovery plans for US species, authorization to seek land purchases or exchanges for important habitat, Federal aid to State and Commonwealth conservation departments with cooperative endangered species agreements.\" It is also illegal to take, import, export, or transport internationally or interstate any listed animals except by permit for certain conservation purposes. It is also illegal to possess, sell, or transport any listed species. Listing also raises awareness about the specie's state, encouraging conservation efforts by other agencies, independent organizations, and individuals. The Endangered Species Act directs the NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to develop and implement recovery plans for threatened and endangered species that include, at a minimum, a description of site-specific management actions necessary to achieve recovery of the species, objective and measurable criteria to determine when a species should be removed from the list, and estimates of the time and costs required to achieve the plan's goal. The ESA allows NMFS to procure the services of public and private entities to develop and implement recovery plans. The implementation of recovery actions are the responsibility of all Americans, but of course largely fall on Federal, state, and local agencies. The NMFS' Program on Cooperative Conservation with States was developed to assist states in developing and implementing their conservation program for listed species. The American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) established Taxon Advisory Groups (TAGs) in 1990 to examine the conservation needs of entire taxa. TAGs serve as committees of expert advisors for selecting which species are appropriate for AZA conservation programs and also provide a forum for discussing husbandry, veterinary, ethical, and other issues that apply to entire taxa. They are also meant to establish priorities for research, conservation, and management of taxa and are able to recruit qualified individuals to carry out these activities. One of the primary responsibilities of TAGs is to evaluate the North American carrying capacity for a given taxonomic group in zoos and aquariums and recommend how this space should be allocated. This planning process results in the development of regional Collection Plans. These plans take into account the limited amount of enclosure space available and the need to maintain animals in populations large enough to ensure long-term genetic viability. These plans take the personal preference and competition out of species conservation and put a scientific management system in place. The goal of this process is that each species and individual held at AZA zoos and aquariums has a defined conservation or education purpose. Below are the criteria used for developing Regional Collection Plans, although for different taxa different criteria may hold different weights:

• \"Conservation status of species
• Existence of a viable North American managed population
• Number of other managed programs
• Husbandry expertise to manage the species
• Availability of potential founders
• Potential for managed population to affect conservation of the species or its ecosystem in the wild
• Reintroduction potential
• Scientific/research value
• Exhibit value
• Education value
• Taxonomic uniqueness\"

List still verbatim from AZA http://www.aza.org/ConScience/index.html (168) Has additional specific species conservation plans

Captive Breeding

Captive breeding programs began as a result of two forces: the unplanned pregnancies of zoo animals and concern for extinctions in the wild. Although some species are very hard to breed, captive breeding has been very successful. 19% of all mammals and 10% of all bird species have been bred in captivity, 90% of all mammals and 74% of all birds added to US zoo collections since 1985 were born in captivity, and some species extinct in the wild still thrive in zoos such as the Przewalski's horse, the Arabian Oryx, and the Pere David's deer. A number of wild populations of species have been reintroduced from captive bred populations, including the Bald Eagle, Golden Lion Tamarin, Andean Condors, and red wolves. These programs have the additional benefit of increasing public awareness and concern through captive breeding programs. There are criticisms, however, including the fact that there may be a reduction in genetic diversity, there are high costs, it focusses on a few endangered species, historically, and may give the sense that the general fight against extinction is being won. Examples of major players in ex situ conservation that may participate in genetic breeding directly or through provisioning of genetic material:

• Zoos: While originally founded as places for people to see \"curious\" animals, they are now centers of captive breeding and opportunities for public education to draw attention to endangered species
• Aquariums: Similar to zoos, except for fish and marine mammals. They have had some success with captive breeding of some species and provide, again, interest in these species through public education.
• Game Farms: While they have a negative view associated with them in general, they do allow species to propagate in semi-natural settings, providing genetic material for breeding programs and potentially allowing for reintroductions. They also reduce hunting pressure on wild populations.
• Captive Breeding Programs: Facilities that are set up solely for breeding targeted species, not for public view.
• Botanical Gardens: Focus on breeding ornamental and/or horticultural species
• Arboreta: Similar to botanical gardens, except that they focus on trees. The problem they face is that there are often few trees of each species in each arboretum.
• Seed Banks: Used as sources of genetic information for the potential reintroduction of plant species that have fallen out of favor or faced some hardship and gone extinct in the wild. There are a number of attempts being made to increase genetic variability, reproductive success, and the effective population size of captive breeding populations:
• Cross-fostering: Some animals breed successfully in captivity but then do not raise their own young, so the young are given to another closely-related species. This is not uncommon in birds, where eggs can be placed in the nest of a closely-related species.
• Artificial Incubation: Some birds and aquatic organisms have a very high rate of hatchling mortality, so eggs are collected, incubated under artificial conditions, and are raised to a critical size or stage before release.
• Artificial Insemination: Sperm is collected from donor males and stored frozen for long-term storage and worldwide distribution to inseminate females, increasing genetic variability.
• Embryo Transfer: Eggs are taken from a female of an endangered species, fertilized with sperm from a donor male, stored by freezing, and implanted into the uterus of a closely-related but non-endangered species for full-term development, birth, and rearing by the foster parent.

The AZA's captive breeding program is referred to as the Species Survival Plan Program (SSP). It is an attempt to manage the breeding of a species in order to maintain a healthy and self-sustaining population that is genetically diverse and demographically stable. In addition, they tend to involve research, public education, and reintroduction and field projects. There are currently 113 SSPs covering 181 different species. These SSPs are overseen by a species coordinator on a day to day basis and have management committees of elected experts who assist with population management, research, education, and reintroduction duties. An SSP is very closely monitored and well organized in order to provide the best chances of successful breeding. The master plan outlines the goals for a population and designs the \"family tree\" of a managed population in order to achieve maximum genetic diversity and demographic stability. All breedings take genetic diversity, social groupings, holding spaces, and transportation considerations are taken into consideration in the master plan. There is also the studbook, which includes information on the births, deaths, transfers, and family lineage of each managed populations. Finally, there are husbandry manuals that set guidelines on animal care based on the best current scientific knowledge. Standardizing these care practices make it easier to detect potential health and care problems and also allows for easier transfer between institutions. The benefits of these programs are that they may result in reintroductions, but even if they do not, they can increase public knowledge and care for the endangered species. This can result in increased fundraising to support field projects and habitat protection. In addition, these programs are useful for basic and applied research and public and professional education programs.

Reintroduction

Species Survival Plans, described above, often have reintroductions as a part of their plans, although this is by no means a goal of every plan. The SSPs are often linked to US Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Recovery Plans. While reintroductions are not a permanent solution to the endangered species problem, it is sometimes the only option for reestablishing healthy wild populations. There are a number of problems with reintroductions, and so they should not be seen as the long term solution to the endangered species problem. First off, they are much more expensive than conserving habitat and the habitat must be saved any way for reintroduction to be successful. There is also the concern that only large, charismatic animals tend to be reintroduced, so reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, and plants get much less attention. There is also the difficulty of replicating natural conditions for successful captive breeding programs and also ensuring that reintroduced individuals will be competitive in the wild. It is often a moot point, however, over whether to try to conserve individuals or ecosystems, as both are done in parallel and it is individual situations that put the emphasis on one over the other. Below are a number of things needed for a successful reintroduction:

• A self-sustaining captive population: Enough breeding stock to provide a surplus of individuals and good genetic management of that stock
• A suitable amount of adequate and protected habitat: The type and amount of habitat needed by the population must be known and attained, as well as protected to prevent another decline from occurring.
• Effective techniques to prepare animals for reintroduction: Individuals about to be reintroduced must be trained to avoid predators, find food, interact with other individuals, find/construct shelter, and breed.
• Post-release monitoring and evaluation: Constant monitoring provides the opportunity to evaluate and modify reintroduction programs to be more effective.
• Professional and public education: Creating local support for reintroduction efforts will help sustain them and ensure that the species that are reintroduced have a chance to survive their new habitat.
• Sufficient long-term funding: Long-term funding is essential because these are long-term programs that need to have money guaranteed throughout the program to provide confidence to the participating institutions.