Western pond turtle hatchling from the Oregon Zoo
This is a new and upcoming topic (well it’s been around for a while but just now gaining momentum in the media). I think for a few decades now zoos have really struggled with “where are we going, and what are we doing” as organizations. In their early existences they served as “Noah’s Arks” and “living museums” for communities. Now, not so much. Most zoos are moving towards using their exhibits to raise awareness of conservation issues and putting resources to helping conserve habitat and captive breed endangered species. So I was happy to see an article in Science by Conde et al. that was a proponent of zoos becoming specialized institutions for breeding a specific species. The authors state “if several institutions link up, zoological gardens will have a considerable collective potential to breed endangered animal species.”
I completely agree that zoo should head this way. In fact, many already have. For example, the Oregon Zoo breeds many local species that are endangered such as the pygmy rabbit, the Oregon spotted frog, and the western pond turtle.
The Chinese have used this method successfully for years with the giant panda – if we could only work more on getting the reproductive rates up in these facilities we’d be in a real position to supplement wild populations. This is exactly what my work is aimed at and the hope is to have some institutions focus on the captive breeding and some focus on the ecosystem conservation. I believe that the only way we can start saving some of these amazing animals is if we start collaborating more together.