Santa Cruz Ground Dove Captive Breeding

An article about the the conservation of the Santa Cruz Ground Dove and the importance of zoos in its conservation:

The race to save the Santa Cruz Ground-dove

Collections mentioned in the article are: Birdworld, Leipzig Zoo, Berlin Zoo, Toledo Zoo, and Jurong Bird Park.

 

Ticked off that 25 made it to Qatar, what self respecting government is willing to export off 6% of an endemic species population like it was nothing. Not to mention the more than a quarter they nearly exported.

 

Auckland Zoo is also mentioned.

~Thylo

 

I think the only place they were shipped with noted permission was Jurong, if I'm understanding the article correctly.

And really, 6% is meager considering a number of species still or historically extinct in the wild, government permitted or not... Look at Spix's Macaw, Guam Rail, Guam Kingfisher, Axolotl, Hawaiian Crow, Scimitar-horned Oryx, Addax, Socorro Dove, the Partula snails, Khisani Spray Toad, California Condor, Red-tailed Black Shark, Ameca, etc... for most of those the captive population exceeds the wild population, the majority of the individuals held outside their native lands. But the species continue, instead of going extinct. If the main population was all held together for these doves, one incident could send them under... the species is safer with multiple breeding sites.

 

Yes, I remember that now. I somehow missed it.

 

What's an Ameca?

 

More specifically, Ameca splendens. It's a killifish that now barely hangs on in the wild. They were popular in the private aquarium trade, mostly by specialists, and so still have a fair population. I understand though interest in them has been waning, and the captive population is shrinking.

 

I didn't recognize that name either. You could have just said Butterfly Splitfin.

 

That was the case for the butterfly splitfin perhaps a decade or two ago, but not anymore. By now it is a species where I wish a few places that maintain them shifted to one of the other rare splitfins or livebearers that are in greater need of attention. The ones kept are certainly still important, but if half shifted to one of the others there would still be more than sufficient for maintaining the butterfly splitfin's captive population and breeding them is quite easy.