L15 + L16 - Conservation Flashcards
What is conservation?
‘to sensibly & carefully use the resources
available in nature’
What should conservation aim for?
Preservation tends to be what many conservation projects try & achieve, but it may not the best thing to do
Habitats & populations are not static, they change & evolve
Conservation should mimic & work alongside the changes
Why is conservation needed?
Human pressure on the environment leads to resources being stretched beyond what nature can cope with
This results in destruction & inability to rejuvenation post use
We have a responsibility to help nature adapt & cope with the pressures we impose
Save habitats & species for the future
Give 4 reasons why we should save habitats and species
Environmental ethics
- It is the right thing to do
Research
- Nature is a superb provider of medicines etc..
- Provides a greater understanding of biology
Continued life
- Happy & healthy planet
Education
- Next generation knows what an elephant is
What are the 9 points WZACS state Zoos have to do?
- Integrate conservation into everything
- conservation of wild populations
- science and research
- education
- politics
- public relations
- sustainability
- manage populations
- ethics and welfare
Why must Zoos follow the WZACS?
It is in the zoo licence act
How do zoos contribute to conservation within the UK?
- providing habitats for native species
- restricting the use of insecticides and herbicides
- co-operating with other bodies of establishment of the management of habitats
- encourage visitors to be environmentally responsible
How do zoos contribute to conservation outside the UK?
Forging partnerships with foreign zoos & other bodies which are active in areas relevant to the conservation of indigenous
wildlife - Assistance can be provided in terms of funding
Advice, donation of materials, secondment of staff or offers of provision of training.
Potential for involvement will vary with size of establishment but no matter how small, at the very minimum, all should
consider participating in species management programmes
How might zoos intergrate conservation into all activites?
• Encourage research to occur within their collection
• Encourage the publication of the results of these
projects
• Present work at symposiums & conferences
• All husbandry techniques made available to all others in
their area to enhance & strengthen knowledge for
husbandry & animal welfare
What is the role of TAGs
Develop and manage a regional collection plan
Identifies what speices should be managed and recommends to zoo
creates studboos to mictromanamge individual species
What are European stud books and the EEP?
European StudBook (ESB)
- Not intensively managed
- Analysis to see if it needs to be managed as EEP
EEP - European Endangered breeding Programme
• More intensively managed
• Collecting info on captive populations
• Genetic & population analysis
• Recommend which animals should breed & movements
How do you decide what species to conserve?
- evolutionary significant units - distinct populations from the rest of the species, could be subspecies or geographically different
- significantly different evolutionarily from the rest of the species population - DNA analysis
- Works well with some species and not others
- well - tigers
- not - elephants there aren’t enough animals to allow subspecies separation - cross breeding ends up with loss of information
What is reintroduction?
An attempt to establish a species in an area (part of its historical range) where it is now extinct…
Source of animals used is either:
– Captive bred or;
– Translocated (wild) animals
How does this differ from reinforcement?
Reinforcement or supplementation is addition of individuals to an existing population of conspecifics
Describe rock wallabies reintroduction
combination of predation, competition, habitat modification and degradation, hunting, disease, climatic changes and stochastic events have contributed to the decline in numbers.
Captive breeding using cross-fostering has been used to increase animal numbers
Pouch young of approximately 10-14 days old are transferred to the pouch of a yellow-footed rock wallaby that have young at a similar stage of lactation, and are of similar age and size.
Raise the joeys through the energy and time intensive lactation period, freeing the brush-tailed rock wallaby mother up to give birth to another joey a month later.
Can see females give birth to up to 8 young in the time they would normally invest into a single young.
The first joey was born at the Adelaide Zoo in 1998 and 116 animals have been born since, with the current captive population standing at 36 after the first reintroduction.
First reintroduction of ten animals occurred at Moora Moora Creek on the 12th November, 2008,
