Abstract
Evaluating the effectiveness of captive breeding programs is central to improving conservation outcomes in released animals. However, few studies have assessed the impact of the strategies and trade-offs involved in husbandry decisions and the selection of traits on the success of breeding programs. This study evaluated a range of husbandry features including an animal's environment, health, and traits of the released individual and its parents involved in the zoo-based Regent Honeyeater breed for release program to optimise individual reproductive success and survivability, leading to improved conservation outcomes in the wild. We analysed 285 birds using a penalised Cox proportional hazard model to assess survival and an ordinal logistic model to evaluate the reproductive success of zoo bred birds released to the wild. Key features identified by the study highlight the importance of having parents that are successful breeders and parents that have an overall higher lifetime reproductive output. However, there were associated quantity-quality trade-offs, as the success of young (i.e., released birds) produced by parents was negatively associated to the number of clutches per year (where one clutch per year was found optimal). The study demonstrated the importance of considering the parental effects on the traits of its offspring beyond its pedigree information and found there was an associated decline in fitness of its offspring with older fathers. Song tutoring using wild Regent Honeyeaters was also important for increased survival post-release. Other important factors are discussed within the review. In general, the study recommended that a multi-faceted approach in the assessment and evaluation of the captive breeding program, to identify markers that will improve conservation outcomes of future releases.
Highlights
Conservation breeding programs continue to play an important role in mitigating the unprecedented rates of species extinction and threats to global biodiversity due to human driven environmental change
The aim of the study is to evaluate a range of husbandry features including an animal’s environment, health, and of the released individual and its parents involved in the captive breeding program for Regent Honeyeaters to better understand how they influence an individual’s post-release success (Figure 1)
Developing an evidence-based framework for the assessment of captive breeding programs is important as it identifies markers, management actions or outputs that lead to the increased performance of the candidate and/or cohort post-release and promotes conservation outcomes
Summary
Conservation breeding programs continue to play an important role in mitigating the unprecedented rates of species extinction and threats to global biodiversity due to human driven environmental change. The success of conservation translocation programs relies on the number and quality of animals re-introduced but on the long-term commitment to restore and preserve the natural habitat of animals in the wild. Zoos play a crucial role in recovery programs through ex-situ breeding efforts. The Californian condor, Gymnogyps californianus, is often the exemplar of a successful captive breeding and conservation translocation program, whose numbers fell to as low as 22 individuals in 1982 and rose to over 518 birds (in captivity and the wild) after an intensive captive breeding program (Subramanian, 2012; United States Department of the Interior, 2019). Other examples include the black-footed ferret, Mustela nigripes (Biggins et al, 1999), golden lion tamarin, Leontopithecus rosalia (Beck et al, 1991), and red wolf, Canis lupus rufus (Phillips et al, 2003)
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