marianne week four reading response

question one-
when sarah long said that “noah got it all wrong” what she meants was that in order to save a species you need a lot more than just one male and one female,  you need a large pool of genetics to maintain healthy genetic variation in a species.  
zoos in north america are now creating complex breeding programs where they keep track of the demographics and genetic makeups of the populations of animals in captivity that are a part of breeding programs to ensure that there is a good amount of genetic variety in a population to sustain the species.  
there are, as with all things, upsides and downsides to this, as are there different reasons for which animals are being bred.  these programs have let us learn numerous things about breeding behaviors (for example, familiarity being a turn off in cheetahs). these programs have been successful in repopulating certain groups of animals, but its possible that because of a need to be selective and limited success in these programs certain animals are being bred while others aren’t (black and white lemurs being bred,  lion tail macaques not being bred).  

question two -
there is a lot of tension between zoo funding and conservation funding because the two are extremely different.  if people were really 100% about conservation they would be giving their money to conservation efforts and not zoos, in my opinion.  zoos have a lot of money to work with but because they are a zoo and not a conservation only facility not all money can reasonably go to the zoos.  zoos are interested in conservation but also in pulling in customers. hence things like lots of money going to a new sea lion home when sea lions aren’t of concern on the endangerment scale.  

question three -
i think that it can be argued that first had experience with animals increases an interest in saving animals but i think that is a flawed reason to keep zoos as they are.  if zoos really generated the amount of desire to help animals that the people in the ‘wild things’ documentary seemed to think i feel that there would be more money towards conservation efforts, etc, than we see currently.  i think it is good to be optimistic about things like this but it is also important to look at them realistically.  

question four -
there are significant differences in views between what should be done when there is not enough room in the zoos for babies, or there are babies born without the desired genetic differences.
zoos in north america depend on contraception to avoid unwanted animal babies in the zoo, while european zoos use euthanasia of unwanted animals as soon as they are born.  the philosophy behind the european method is that in keeping animals in zoos we take away so much normalcy from the animals lives that the least we can do is allow them to exist with animals of the opposite sex and breed in the most natural way possible.  the philosophy behind the north american method is that the public would not respond well to euthanasia of animals.  i think both plans are troubling, just like all of zoos.  i’m totally unable to pick which one is better, although i do remember in one of the readings it being mentioned that european zoos take the animal’s day-to-day life into more consideration than the north american zoos do and i think that is good.