What are the advantages & disadvanatages of captive breeding ?
Well, on the one hand, it doesn’t fix the problem. If a species is in decline because of habitat loss (ex. an animal needs to live in old growth forests, but timber harvest has removed almost all the old growth in a region), poaching (ex. Many animals are harvested illegally for Chinese traditional medicine– endangered species laws don’t dissuade them, because the animals are part of their culture and there is high demand for them. Many animals are endangered because they are killed for CTM), or air/water quality (ex. Amphibians are killed by chemicals and pH changes in the water, so you won’t find them in ponds near people’s yards who use pesticide or herbicide). In those cases, if an animal is endangered, and you breed them in captivity, you will never be able to put them back into the wild, because they will only die again. You would have to constantly breed them and put them back into the wild. It also doesn’t treat conservation as an ecological system. An ecosystem is based on th
