Determining Success Factors in Captive-Breeding Reintroduction Programs

Many reintroduction programs continue to result in failure, often plagued by poor science and inadequate documentation, yet success has been shown to improve through scientific approaches. The Calgary Zoo’s Centre for Conservation Research (CCR) is conducting fundamental research to determine success factors in bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian captive-breeding reintroduction programs. The study can be divided into the following three phases:

  • Assess life history traits which characterize viable candidates for reintroduction.
  • Identify factors that allow captive-breeding programs to transcend to the release stage.
  • Determine predictors for successful captive-breeding reintroduction programs.

 

Objectives of this research are to improve predictive capabilities for determining viable candidate species for reintroduction and develop improved guidelines for taxa-specific captive-breeding reintroduction programs. Our ultimate goal is for reintroduction practitioners to use these scientifically-informed decision-making tools to aid them in allocating their resources towards maximum conservation benefit, thereby improving the likelihood of success of future reintroduction programs.