Welcome to the Whoopee Lab
Fall 2002, OnEarth (NRDC), p. 11
Fourteen individuals away from extinction in the late 1970s,
North America's red wolves ran into each other so rarely that
they began mating with western coyotes. With the species facing
demise and conservationists facing few options, these last wolves
ended up in a captive breeding program-in which wild species
are placed in research facilities and mated under the supervision
of biologists. Such Noah's-Ark conservation methods are expensive
(and do little to mitigate the storm of human activity that
has swept away critical wildlife habitat). But when populations
are about to hit rock bottom, carefully constructed breeding
programs have been able to keep some species afloat. -C.S.
Red Wolf Whooping crane Blowout Penstemon Karner Blue Butterfly White Abalone
The Brink Late 1970s: 14 left in Louisiana and Texas 1967:48 left in Wood
Buffalo National Park in Alberta, Canada 1940: Thought to be extinct 1992:
20,000-40,000 remained in entire Great Lakes region Today: A few thousand
left in U.S. waters The Problem People, who poisoned them and killed them
with guns and traps under legal predator-control programs Big agriculture,
which drained freshwater marsh habitat; and hunters, who easily picked off
the slowmoving birds Humans' repression of prairie fires, which vastly reduced
the flowering plant's sandy, eroded 'blowout" habitat Disappearance
of its host plant, wild lupine, which in turn was a victim of urban sprawl
and agricultural expansion Growth of commercial harvesting along the California
coast The Breeding Plan The red wolf mates readily in large, naturalistic
pens. Now that scientists have solved the case of the occasional disappearing
pup (confused adults were eating them), the birthing process is monitored,
and females produce on average 4-8 pups a year. Mating whooping cranes proved
to be a tough business-highly territorial, they need space and isolation,
and a number of the birds require a little extra help in the form of artificial
insemination. Initially, a lone grad student planted 40,000 seeds in the
wild: three germinated and then died. Penstemon is now grown in greenhouses
in sand, and replanted in the wild at a 10to 40-percent survival rate. First
bred in rectangular cages, blues had a bad habit of getting stuck in corners
and dying. Now pairs flit about in mesh tents wrapped around wild lupine.
When ten larvae cling to the plant, the butterflies are moved to a fresh
host for a new round of larvae-making. Abalone are bred in large tubs, where
as many as 3 million eggs are mixed with sperm. The larvae then rest on racks
covered with algal film until they're ready for a diet of giant kelp. Cost
$860,000 annually $3 million annually $450,000 for 20 years $20,000 annually
$500,000 since 2001 Signs of Success One hundred red wolves now roam 1.5
million acres of northeastern North Carolina. In June, "Lucky" took
flight, becoming the first non-migratory whooping crane to fledge in the
wild in sixtythree years. 15,000 plants have been reintroduced, potentially
enough for reclassification from endangered to threatened. The butterfly
is reproducing in Ohio, a state where the species had been declared extinct.
After one year, 100,000 white abalone, an inch long, are in culture awaiting
a permit for ocean reintroduction
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