How Might We Move Forward With Captive Breeding Programs Over The Next 10 Years?

We need to continue the trend toward having all captive breeding populations managed well. We need to ensure that record-keeping is consistent and that the information is shared properly

We also need to do more to tackle the problem of inbreeding. It is relatively easy to study and understand the loss of genetic diversity and inbreeding that can occur in small populations. It is much harder although maybe as important to study and understand how captive populations are moving away from the wild gene pool as they adapt to the captive environment.

The same issues exist with respect to behavioural and physiological and even physical changes. For example, we might easily observe and respond to obvious behavioural problems in a captive animal. But it is harder to know what has changed in terms of that animal's capacity for predator avoidance behavior, predation skills, mate acquisition and other social behaviours that don't depend on humans.