Important Considerations for Intensive Management of Endangered Species

1. Important Considerations for Intensive Management of Endangered Species • Often managers rush into intensive management for a quick, high profile fix of a declining species • Before captive propagation, reintroduction, and translocation are considered four general areas should be addressed (Kleiman et al. 1994) • Condition of the Species • Environmental Conditions • Biopolitical Considerations • Biological Knowledge

2. Removing the Cause of Decline • This is really the crux of endangered species conservation • Requires detailed observation and likely experimentation to fully understand reason for decline • Brown tree snake was not immediately recognized • Condor limiting factors required telemetry to ID • not 1080, not disturbance at nest, not shooting, likely lead poison because Condors need open habitat to find food and hunters/ranchers common there

3. Facing the Evil Quartet • Typically we are up against • habitat destruction/degradation • exotics • trophic cascades • overharvest • contaminants • Contaminants and overharvest are easiest to remove or reduce

4. Recovery after Agent of Decline Removed • Stop Over harvest • whales, alligator • Remove Pesticides • Peregrine, Bald Eagle, Brown Pelican • Remove Pesticides and Modify Habitat Needs • Mauritius Kestrel (Jones et al. 1991) • 1974-----4 birds • 1991-----127-145 birds

5. Exotics are Very Difficult to Control • Disease, Snakes • Technology not adequate to control • Buy time by “marooning” (Williams 1977) • release small numbers of species with poor dispersal ability in isolated habitat (typically islands) • 700 islands off New Zealand • Saddleback, Kakapo (flightless parrot), Takahe (Rail) • Buys time until feral introduced mammals can be removed • Guam Rail released on Rota

6. Are We Treating the Symptom or the Cause of the Problem? • Often rush into captive propagation without addressing limiting factor • “Headstarting” Sea Turtles (Tate 1990) • rear until old enough to avoid predation on nesting grounds • Better to protect nesting ground • Hatcheries and barges for Salmon • damns, habitat loss, fishing, etc are cause • May be justified to learn about propagation and control • Mariana Crow

7. A Complex Example of Addressing Limiting Factors • Rhinos in Africa http://gurukul.ucc.american.edu/Ted/RHINOBLK.HTM • Destruction of habitat, hunting, illegal trade in products (folk medicine, dagger handles) • reduction in numbers from 65,000-100,000 in 1960s to ~3,000 today • regulations (CITES) • scientific study of medicinal effects • Leader of Yehman using agate handle dagger • shoot to kill poacher policy • De-horning • Ranching to flood market

8. Little Progress with Rhinos • Can’t change old beliefs quickly • medicinal effects of horn • Value of horn in poor countries makes risk of death worth it • De-horning not very effective(Berger 1998, Rachlow and Berger 1997) • grow back (possible sustainable harvest?) • killed out of spite • even small portion of horn near skull valuable • dehorned mothers less able to defend calfs from hyenas • Need to work at both ends of trade routes

9. Hope with One-horned Rhinos (Dinerstein 2003) • Rhinos in India-Nepal are increasing with creation of Royal Chitwan National Park • Community pride, ecotourism, natural resource benefits to residents, Royal family of Nepal leadership • General approach • Design landscapes with large, protected cores • Introduce powerful economic incentives, legislation, awareness • Identify bold leadership to rally political will • Translocation • Redistribution of park revenue to locals • Resettlement or land transfer

10. How Do We Protect or Restore Enough Habitat? • Biopolitical Considerations (Kleiman et al. 1994) • No negative impact for locals • Community support exists • GOs and NGOs supportive/involved • But what about when there is an obvious Economic Cost? • Especially when habitat is already being used by humans • Salmon

11. Captive Breeding and Reintroduction • Once the limiting factors have been addressed it might be time for intensive management • last resort • expensive • difficult to make succeed • Beck et al. 1994-- 11% successful • Griffith et al. 1989-- 19% successful • requires large, long-term effort in captivity and the wild

12. Typical Questions About Captive Propagation • Is it necessary? • Is it successful and worth it? • How do you do it? • Technical questions about breeding, rearing, and release

13. Intensive Management Programs are Complex • Example from Mariana • Crow program on Guam • landowner coordination • monitoring • pull eggs • rear nestlings • translocate • hack to the wild • control predators

14. Why Captive Breed? • Produce stock for reintroduction (Wilson and Stanley Price 1994) • Preserve genetic variability • Produce stock for research • Produce animals for public education • Provide insurance against extinction • alala pva

15. What are We Breeding in Captivity? • (Ginsberg 1994, Canids) • Reviewed species bred in captivity (N = 32) from 1971-1990. • Most are common species • Increase in vulnerable and endangered species in late 1980s 3 endangered species account for 95% of litters for V&E species (Maned Wolf, Af. Wild Dog, and Bush Dog) 75% of all captive breeding is done on 3 species (grey wolf, red fox, dingo)

16. Criteria to Meet Prior to Reintroduction (Kleiman et al. 1994) • Already discussed environmental and political considerations • Condition of the species • Is there a need to increase numbers, populations, or genetic diversity of the species? • Is appropriate stock available? • Will introduction jeopardize wild population?

17. Criteria to Meet Prior to Reintroduction (Kleiman et al. 1994) • Biological and Other Resources • Do we know how to rear and reintroduce the species? • Do we know enough about the biology of the species to determine if we have been successful? • Is funding for the long term available • includes monitoring success of reintroduction

18. Example of Meeting Criteria for Tamarins (Kleiman et al. 1994)

19. Assessment of Reintroduction Projects (Beck et al. 1994) % of Projects • Reviewed projects from 1900 to 1993 • N=145 projects, 13 million animals of 126 species • acclimate = hard vs. soft release

20. What Made Project Successful? • Successful if N=500 w/o human intervention or PVA looks good • 16 (11%) successful • Training, local involvement, education, and duration are consistently important

21. Criteria for Success from Griffith et al. (1989) • Type of species (game more successful than threatened) • Habitat quality (better success into good habitat) • Location of release (better in core of historic range) • Source of stock (Wild caught better than hand-reared) • Food habits (herbivore better than carnivore or omnivore) • Duration of study (longer and more animals released increased success)

22. Size and Persistence of Release Matters (Ginsberg 1994) • PVA model results (Kit Foxes) • N=Starting pop size • SP=successive releases of 20 indiv/yr for 10 years • Huge increase in viability with little increase in per year release effort. N=50 N=100 N=500 Successive Releases N=50SP; N=100SP

23. Major Drawbacks to Success (Snyder et al. 1996) • Need to maintain a self sustaining captive population • Need to successfully reintroduce • May get domestication and disease in captivity • Need considerable funds and facilities • Diverts attention from long-term solution in the field (easy to do quick fix) • Need consistent administration(Clark et al. 1994)

24. The Biology of Captive Propagation and Reintroduction • Captive Breeding • zoo biology and husbandry • Manipulating Wild Pairs • pull clutch • Captive Rearing • considerations of diet, disease, training • Reintroduction • translocation, fostering, hacking (soft release), hard release

25. A General Captive Propagation Program • Aplomado falcons (Cade et al. 1991) • bring birds in from captivity • acclimate so they breed in captivity • increase productivity by food supplementation and clutch manipulation • hand rear young, experiment with parent rearing • manipulate wild pairs • clutch manipulation • hack out captive-reared birds • meet recovery goal for species • 30-50 young released for 10-15 years • require 15 pairs (35 individuals)

26. How to Incubate Eggs? • An example of figuring out one aspect of captive propagation • Use of surrogate species • Need controlled experiments

27. Effects of Manipulating Wild Pairs • Bald Eagles (Wood and Collopy 1993) • 78% renested within 1 month • subsequent reproduction within the year may be reduced • this was modeled with RAMAS age model and was estimated not to affect viability of “donor” population • Corvids (Marzluff et al. 1994) • 69% renested • reduced clutch size on renesting and slightly lower number of fledglings • occupancy and productivity at manipulated sites was same as controls next year

28. Hand-rearing May Produce Undersized Young for Release • Growth is usually faster in nature and may produce light-weight young (magpies) • Growth in captivity may be compensatory (crows) • If dominance is related to size, then survival or breeding may be reduced • Whitmore and Marzluff 1998

29. Raising Mammals in Captivity • Hand-rearing diets for wild ungulate neonates • used ad lib feeding of evaporated milk • easy and growth similar to wild • Wild et al. 1994. Elk Big-horn Pronghorn

30. Practice Makes More Perfect • Mortality of pups is reduced with increasing number of litters produced for a species • 3 outliers were removed from analysis??) • Ginsberg 1994

31. Ferret Predatory Behavior Is Influenced by Rearing • Vargas 1994 • % of ferrets that killed PDs at 16.5 weeks • Group I • cage-raised, no exposure to live prey • Group II • Cage-raised, exposed to live hamsters--went for back of neck, not throat • Group III • Cage-raised, exposed to live Prairie Dogs • Group IV • Outdoor raised, exposed to PDs

32. Survival of Released Foxes is Affected by Method of Release • Kit Foxes (in Ginsberg 1994) • Wild caught translocated (hard release) did best in short term • Hard versus Soft Release were similar after 2 years Wild Caught, Hard-release All Soft Releases All Hard Releases Captive Reared, Hard-release

33. Sometimes Younger is Better! (Valutis 1997) • Post-release survival of American Crows was better if we released them young • less dispersal • gradual integration into wild flocks may be better • wild birds may be more receptive to new birds during breeding season Assume missing birds were alive Assume missing birds were dead

34. References • Vargas, A. 1994. Ontogeny of the endangered black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) and effects of rearing conditions on predatory behavior and post-release survival. PhD. Diss. U. Wyoming • Ginsberg, JR. 1994. Captive breeding, reintroduction and the conservation of canids. PP. 365-383. In. Olney et al. (eds.). Creative Conservation. Chapman and Hall, London. • Valutis, LL. 1997. Reintroduction of captive-reared birds. MSc. BSU. Boise, ID. • Wild, MA. Et al. 1994. Comparing growth rates of dam- and hand-raised Bighorn sheep, pronghorn, and elk neonates. J W M 58:340-347. • Whitmore, KD and JM Marzluff. 1998. Hand-rearing corvids for reintroduction: importance of feeding regime, nestling growth, and dominance. JWM 62:1460-1479.

35. More References • Wilson, AC and MR Stanley Price. 1994. Reintroduction as a reason for captive breeding. PP 243-264. In. Olney et al. (eds.). Creative Conservation. Chapman and Hall, London. • Kleiman, DG et al. 1994. Criteria for reintroductions. PP 287-303. In. Olney et al. (eds.). Creative Conservation. Chapman and Hall, London. • Beck, B.B., et al. 1994. Reintroduction of captive-born animals. PP 265-286. In. Olney et al. (eds.). Creative Conservation. Chapman and Hall, London. • Griffith, B. Et al. 1989. Translocation as a species conservation tool: status and strategy. Science 245:477-480. • Cade, TJ et al. 1991. Efforts to restore the northern aplomado falcon by captive breeding and reintroduction. Dodo 27:71-81. • Williams, GR. 1977. Marooning--a technique for saving threatened species from extinction. International Zoo Yearbook 17:102-106.

36. Yet More References • Jones, CG. Et al. 1991. A summary of the conservation management of the mauritius kestrel Falco punctatus 1973-1991. Dodo 27:81-99. • Rachlow, JL. And J. Berger. 1997. Conservation implications of patterns of horn regeneration in dehorned white rhinos. Conservation Biology 11:84-91. • Berger, J. 1996. Animal behaviour and plundered mammals: Is the study of mating systems a scientific luxury or a conservation necessity? Oikos 77:207-216. • Wood, PB. And MW Collopy. 1993. Effects of egg removal on bald eagle productivity in northern Florida. JWM 57:1-9. • Marzluff, JM et al. 1994.Captive propagation and reintroduction of social birds. Annual Report. Sustainable Ecosystems Institute, Meridian, ID.