A Step Into the Wild

Reintroduction stories - like those of the California condor or the Arabian oryx - are the greatest, most feel-good stories of the zoo world.  Unfortunately, they aren't as common as we wish they were.  They are expensive, difficult, and usually used as a last-ditch effort to save a species that's already on the brink.

It doesn't have to be that way, though.

This week, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park sent a very special package to Tanzania.  Eric, a black rhinoceros, has already made his mark in the US captive-breeding program.  Now, he's setting his reproductive sights on the wild ladies.  He'll be living in a semi-wild setting, where he'll be able to introduce his genetic material into the small, threatened population.  The Tanzanian government hopes to use this population to reintroduce black rhinos to the Serengeti Plains, an ecosystem where they have been absent for many years.

If this works, there's probably lots of potential for zoo-bred animals to be used to new genes into wild populations.  That would allow these genes to be passed into wild-born animals, saving populations from inbreeding depression that could potentially lead to extinction.  Similarly, zoo-laid eggs of birds and reptiles can be slipped in wild nests.  There's already precedent for the puppies of endangered Mexican wolves to be stealthily swapped, exchanged genetic material between the zoo and wild populations.  This is just the next step.

If I was one of Eric's (hell of a name for a rhino, by the way), I'd be very proud... and a little terrified.  I mean, East Africa... where rhino's are heavily poached.  I know that he'll be kept super-protected, but man... that's a lot to worry.  During his North American life, Eric lived at the Safari Park among herds of giraffe, antelope, and buffalo in an enclosure bigger than most whole zoos.  Now, he'll get to see how the other half lives.

Pictures from San Diego Zoo Facebook page