On Tiger Subspecies and Captive Breeding Programs

I think that zoos seriously need to consider why they keep tigers. I doubt if many visitors are bothered about whether the zoo has a pure subspecies or not and I think more visitors would prefer to see white tigers.
There are relatively few attempts to release captive tigers into the wild. One was swet up for Chinese tigers in South Africa: Embark on an adventure with wild tigers — in the middle of SA. If zoos want to have similar projects, I think the tigers have to be kept apart from people as much as possible. If tigers associate people with food, this would be catastrophic for local people and I doubt if they would accept tigers nearby.
If tigers are not to be part of rewilding projects, zoos need to consider reducing their numbers. Do the subspecies need to be kept pure? If so, do zoos need to keep hybrids? I don't think that both scenarios should continue. I think tigers should be conserved in-situ by preserving natural habitats. In a world of increasing populations, if the habitats aren't protected now, I doubt if they ever will be. Their demise will lead to local extinctions of tigers and other species.
Having 1,000-3,000 individual tigers in zoos is excessive, in my opinion. Tigers are big animals and should be kept in large enclosures. Unfortunately, these enclosures are often built at the expense of smaller species, which may also be endangered, but which most people have little knowledge about. Such species could be conserved in-situ and/or ex-situ and be more easily rewilded than tigers and other large species. I suspect that many of those species could become extinct in the near future and would only be mourned by a few people when it was too late. Several species have been kept in zoos in the last century, but are now extinct, some within the last few decades. I believe it is more important for zoos to save species, genera and families from extinction, rather than keeping subspecies pure for the sake of it.

 

This is an interesting perspective, and not one I have a really tight debate against. However, if we are going to take it as a "way forward" we need to really, really question the mission of zoos in general. The same questions would reasonably apply to any endangered animal that has no real prospect of being re-wilded. Elephants, rhino, tapir, various apes and monkeys, not to mention all the small animals, etc. all have no real way of being widely re-wilded or reintroduced into their native habitats - where do they really fit into in the modern zoo?

I personally think there is value in conserving, even if it is simply captive, unique species and sub-species. The value is both in raising awareness for in-situ conservation as well as in just general value in humans seeing the different species and sub species. It inspires, it makes people focus on different and varied aspects of conservation and the future of all species.

Could the same be accomplished with "generic" tigers, maybe. But organizations like the AZA have the ability to conserve different sub-species that have unique characteristics, so I see a value in these organizations doing so.

 

Like you say, if tigers are to be rewilded, they must be isolated from human contact as much as possible. While many zoos do the opposite, socialising them so they make decent display animals, it could easily be implemented in the future with a few modifications to their husbandry.

HOWEVER…this is where the importance of maintaining purebred subspecies comes in. If we maintain purebred subspecies, then rewilding will remain an option into the future if it ever becomes feasible. If we hybridise now, we’ll never have that option.

The ideal scenario would be being able to conserve wild populations of tigers, but there’s no guarantee this can be achieved and it’s reassuring to know several subspecies are insured with thriving captive populations.

 

I personally find the argument that there should be no subspecific tigers in zoos absurd. I think a better argument would be asking why there are active programs for three Tiger subspecies. Perhaps zoos would be better re-allocating resources by phasing out one or two of the tiger subspecies, focusing on less. There's also a weather aspect to consider. Amur tigers are the ideal subspecies for zoos in the Northern, colder regions- while they would not be a good choice for zoos in Southern, warmer regions. So maybe consolidate the warm-weather species into focusing on either malayans or sumatrans and phasing out the other? Not sure how much it'd free up resources/space, but I could easily see an argument for that.

 

People need to learn the difference between an insurance population vs. a population actively being conditioned for being released.

 

I think we all understand the difference. The former has a theoretical conservation value in that it’s not suitable for release in its current state; while the latter would usually be derived from the former.

 

I disagree. My post was mostly in response to the OP:

And to this:

Neither seems to separate the two concepts.

 

“If tigers are not to be part of rewilding projects, zoos need to consider reducing their numbers”

Why tigers and and not every other animal and sub species?

If you want zoos to keep other animals instead of tigers or you just don’t want tigers in zoos I get that statement then but it’s lacking in any real logic to apply this to tigers and not every other animal and by logic every other zoo. Particularly as you then argue that breeding should be a free for all where no one cares about reflecting the wild in captive populations.

 

Hello, Lafone.

This forum is about tiger subspecies. I consider the same principle applies to subspecies of other species that are not part of rewilding projects. I also do not believe that breeding should be a free for all, as this often leads to tigers going to other zoos, often leading to tiger enclosures replacing enclosures formerly occupied by other species. I want zoos to conserve as many endangered species as possible and aim to maximise the number of species that can safely be rewilded.

 

It’s an interesting take but luckily for those of us who want to see a wide variety of sub species maintained to reflect the wild and believe in the value of zoos beyond so called ‘rewilding’ it’ll never happen.

 

I realise that, Lafone

I suspect that zoos will continue to build larger enclosures for big animals and reduce the numbers of smaller animals they keep. This will lead to various species becoming extinct that could have been saved. After all, the marketing and education departments can't be expected to interest visitors in small, obscure endangered animals, can they?

 

Fair enough, I guess I am unsure how far removed an animal population can be from the wild and still be able to be conditioned for release. With orcas, it seems to be the general consensus that the captive orca population is unfit to be released into the wild since it is so far removed from wild orca behavior and natural history. Keiko is of course the famous example supporting that. What separates tiger insurance populations from that? Is there a line that can be drawn that separates the treatment of certain captive populations as unreleasable and is that line drawn between species taxonomically or between the management of those species?

I understand that you work for a zoological institution (?) so I'm sure you'd have a better understanding of this than I would.

 

First and foremost, it is not up to zoos to decide whether to release animals back into the wild or not. It is up to local governments, conservation projects, protected areas managers, and NGOs and it has to follow the IUCN guidelines for reintroduction programmes as well as take all the financial, logistical and bureaucratic mess that it takes. Conservation projects must follow the "one-plan approach" where multiple stakeholders take part in the plan.
Another important concept that is necessary to have in mind is; no single animal living today in a zoo will be released back into the wild. I know shocking. Their descents are the ones that will eventually be released if there will be conditions to do so, in other words, suitable habitat without hunting or disturbances.
Finally, you never introduce a zoo-born animal straightaway into the wild (especially large carnivores or animals that require strong learning to survive). You move it to a breeding facility in range (means: to a facility where the species naturally occurs) where the animal can be housed in semi-wild conditions. Then it is given time to acclimate to the new conditions and perhaps learn to survive by itself. Later that individual or its descents are released into the wild. This phased process is called soft release.
So summarizing, breeding and managing backup populations is no more than a strategy to gain time in a world in crisis for biodiversity, because currently, we are not being able to reverse the destruction of natural habitats. So captive populations give us time to solve the in-situ problems first to later reintroduce new animals there.
As a final note: with the new assisted reproductive technologies you may not even need to move animals to "reintroduce" them back into the wild. You can artificially inseminate a female from an isolated collapsing wild population with sperm from a captive male, hence introducing new genetic diversity into that population.

I hope this helped to clarify some ideas.
Cheers!

 

I wouldn't sat that "no" animals living today in zoos will be released back into the wild. The number will be small, but there are on-going re-introduction efforts, in which individuals alive today will end up being released. That being said, none of those individuals will be tigers. Instead, it will be almost entirely the likes of small herps and predominately individuals that are yet to reach sexual maturity.

We're also reaching the point in technological achievement that soon we may not see animals reintroduced at all for many species, but instead see the reintroduction of genes. This is what I could see occurring with tigers, for instance a wild female tiger is artificially inseminated with sperm from a captive male tiger to add genetic diversity to a fragmented population, whereas full-blown reintroduction would be unrealistic.

 

Aside from the obvious exaggeration of my statement (which of course does not apply to every taxonomic group or to every single case), it is exactly that what I have said.

 

Agreed, I just wanted to clarify so that others would realize it was an exaggeration (especially since to many, including myself, it didn't seem so "obvious").

 

Thank you for that anyway.
I also only provided a line of argumentation purely from the population management perspective. Of course, there are many other purposes for keeping those pure subspecies populations in captivity (education, public awareness, fundraising, research, etc) which also support in-situ conservation.