Hi, I'm an animal management student looking for some help with an assignment. I need to compare two positives and two negatives of using and maintaining breeding records for elephant's in zoos and how significant it has been to there specie improvement, However I am having great difficulty finding answers, if you guys could help me out that would be great , Thanks
It seems an odd question, almost a non-question. Surely keeping breeding records is essential with no downside?
This was kinda my thoughts, I just can't seem to think of or find a downside for breeding records, whether it be in zoo animals, farm animals etc. The only thing I can think of is that many records are stored on online databases and if the internet goes down then there's possibly no access, however that just doesn't seem to fit the question being asked
The main issue has to be that some early breeding records did not take account of sub- specific status of the animals being mated together. However, with careful tracing of import records etc this information can be found out. I think that the current studbook take account of these sort of things.
Disadvantage - Paper or digital records can be lost or damaged with no back up. So for an older animal there may be no early history of that individual if something happens to those records (unlikely with studbooks and information in different places these days but it could happen) Couldn't come up with a second (keeping records is the obvious thing to do in today's modern world of EEP's and studbooks!) Good luck
The only other disadvantages I can think of are the costs of running it, like time and money. But as previously said, there doesn't seem to be much of an actual downside. There may be disadvantages to certain zoos from participating in a managed programme, they might have to send favourite animals away, or maintain a non-breeding group when offspring would bring in the crowds, but this seems a different point to the one about "using and maintaining breeding records".
I can't really think of any disadvantage to keeping records, knowledge is always better than ignorance. I suppose it can lead to unimportant animals (hybrids, inbred animals,individuals with genetic diseases, those that are overrepresented in the gene pool) being moved away or being euthanized, which can lead to a bad reaction from the public. But that's not the record's fault. The records don't force you to do anything.
