Is Captive Breeding Creating Viable Populations…Or Zoo Specimens?
by Julianne Couch and Tracey C. Rembert Captive breeding of an endangered species can make the difference between its success or failure. The black-footed ferret, the cheetah, the Wyoming toad and the peregrine falcon have all spent generations in captivity, where they eat, drink, sleep and mate at the direction of biologists. All four have teetered on the edge of extinction but, at least partly as a payoff for “doing time” in captivity, they’ve dodged the bullet for now. According to Dr. E. Tom Thorne of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department Research Unit in Laramie, Wyoming, captive breeding of the black-footed ferret was “biologically mandatory” if they were to recover from disease and the decimation of their habitat and food supply. Thorne is the veterinarian in charge of the ferret captive breeding program developed to help the animal flourish again in the wild. The black-footed ferret is the only wild example of the genus in North America. It was thought to be extinct until 1981,
