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ASSOCIATION FOR PARROT CONSERVATION 



POSITION STATEMENT 



CAPTIVE BREEDING AS A RECOVERY MEASURE 



written by 



Dr. Noel Snyder, Director, Thick-billed Parrot Program, Wildlife Preservation Trust International, 

 Portal, Arizona 



Captive breeding has served a crucial function in the recovery of a number of species of 

 critically endangered wildlife, and has a role to play in the recovery of certain parrots. However, 

 the Association for Parrot Conservation (APC) also recognizes that there are significant 

 limitations to this technique when it is used as a recovery measure (i.e., birds are bred for 

 ultimate release to the wild). In general, APC recommends it only as a short-term technique 

 when other preferable conservation options are not immediately available. Employed properly 

 in recovery programs, captive breeding can provide a critical boost for some severely threatened 

 populations. Employed improperly, it can lead to greatly increased recovery costs and risks 

 rather than benefits. It is important, therefore, to identify when it should or should not be used 

 as a recovery measure. 



APC also recognizes that captive breeding has other values that are less directly related 

 to species recovery, such as providing birds for exhibit, conservation education (especially to help 

 convince the public of needs for habitat preservation), and fund-raising purposes. Captive 

 populations can also provide an important resource for fundamental biological research and 

 research training that cannot be accomplished with wild individuals. The precautions that should 

 be observed in captive breeding for recovery purposes are different from those that are 

 appropriate for captive breeding for these other purposes. In this position statement, APC 

 addresses the advantages, disadvantages, and precautions that relate to captive breeding for 

 recovery (reintroduction) purposes, without implying that this is the only sphere in which captive 

 breeding plays a role in conservation. 



Advantages of Captive Breeding in Species Recovery Programs 



When captive breeding is properly integrated into a species recovery program it can offer 

 a number of advantages. Most importantly, it can serve as a safety net for species whose wild 

 populations face a high probability of extinction. With species that breed readily in captivity, 

 it is sometimes possible to greatly increase the rate of reproduction through techniques such as 

 multiple-clutching, and speed the recovery of wild populations through releases of captive-bred 

 birds. Potentially, such releases can serve a number of purposes such as increasing extant 

 populations, correcting sex-ratio imbalances, reestablishing extirpated populations and/or 

 establishing new populations in natural or altered habitats. If conducted properly, captive 

 breeding can sometimes make it possible to minimize losses of genetic diversity from critically 

 threatened populations and minimize chances of catastrophic loss of populations. 



Captive populations have an important role to play in species recovery when pressures 

 on wild populations are truly overwhelming in the s£ort term and there is no way to sustain wild 



