Chap 15

Question 1

Project Puffin

Answer 1

brought 954 puffins to Easter egg rock island over 13 years, increased population, past 2 years haven’t been doing well so not sure of working

Question 2

reintroduction

Answer 2

the release of individuals that were produced in captivity or collected from other natural populations

aka reestablishment or restoration

Question 3

reinforcement

Answer 3

releasing individuals into an existing population to increase its size and gene pool

Question 4

translocation

Answer 4

the intentional movement of individuals from one area to another, usually to areas that they have never before occupied

aka assisted colonization or introduction

Question 5

translocation is sometimes used to……

Answer 5

denote the movement of individuals from a location where they are about to be destroyed to another, more protected site

Question 6

Ecological replacement

Answer 6

introduction of the most suitable extant form to fill the ecological niche left by the extinction of a species

(replace similar species with one that has gone extinct)

Question 7

Community construction

Answer 7

introduction of suites of species to create new species assemblages

Question 8

hard release

Answer 8

animals released in the wild without assistance such as food supplementation

cost effective but sometimes not successful

Question 9

Soft release

Answer 9

special care ans assistance given to reintroduced animals to increase survival prospects

greater success, give them assistants to help them get established but expensive and cannot be done every single species

Question 10

reintroduction: to ensure success many conditions must be met

Answer 10

1. must fix original cause of population decline
2. captive bred animals need to learn some behaviors from parents
3. precise habitat needs have to be known
4. the number of released individuals must be great enough to establish population
5. genetic diversity must be maximized, without disrupting important genetic differences among existing populations
6. in many cases public support must be earned

Question 11

Some generalizations based on 200 established bird and mammal reintroduction programs

Answer 11

1. success was greater for releases in excellent quality habitat (84%) than poor quality habitat (38%)
2. Success was greater in the core of the historical range (78%) than at the periphery of and outside the historical range (48%)
3. success was greater with wild-caught (75%) than with captive-reared animals (38%)
4. success was greater for herbivores (77%) than for carnivores
5. success was greater when large numbers of animals were introduced (up to ~100)

Question 12

Captive breeding programs

Answer 12

• generally used for species that are on the brink of extinction
• sometimes involves removing all remaining individuals of a species from the wild
• expensive option that can only be used on a limited number of species
• moral considerations as well

Question 13

rehabilitation

Answer 13

capturing individuals from the wild, administering some sort of treatment that may include medical intervention and then releasing the treated individuals back into the wild

range from nursing a bird with a broken wing back to health to de-oiling wildlife after an oil spill

can be very expensive

Question 14

sea otter example

Answer 14

$17 million was spent on rehabbing oiled sea otters after 1989 Exxon oil spill

357 were taken, 197 released into wild at $80,000 per otter

only half of 45 tagged otters likely survived, meaning each successfully rehabbed otter cost $160,000

given 100,000+ otters it is unlikely that a substantially improve the viability of the population

Question 15

Ex situ conservation:

zoos, aquaria, botanical gardens, and arboerta play an important role in species conservation in 3 ways.

Answer 15

1. as a source of conservation education (and dollars) for urban populations
2. for research opportunities, as the rarity of the species makes it difficult or impossible to study the species in the wild
3. as a last stronghold for species that are extinct or nearly extinct in the wild

Question 16

banking and cloning of genetic information

Answer 16

large-scale projects are underway to bank genetic information of vulnerable, endangered, and extinct species

seeds, cell cultures, tissue samples, embryos, semen, ova, etc.

Question 17

novel ecosystems

Answer 17

collections of species that have never before occurred together in the wild

if viewed from an ecosystem function perspective, than novel ecosystems have value

perhaps this approach is inevitable as large scale restoration becomes more difficult

Question 18

Case Study: Yellowstone wolves

Answer 18

gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone ecosystem

originally faced considerable opposition form ranchers, hunters, loggers, and miners

argument that wolf reintroduction was necessary to fix ecosystem imbalance won out

parts of 5 separate packs

held in lg pens for 10 weeks

reintroduction was successful

2012: 480 wolves 75 packs

trophic interactions and ecological structure restored