Excerpt from Captive Propagation for Recovery of Species Under Esa: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Environment and Natural Resources of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, First Session; March 1, 1994

Another problem in captivity is disease. It is Often assumed that captive populations are safe compared to their wild counterparts, but this is simply a misconception, and captive individuals face mortality risks just like their wild counterparts although the risks are usually very different. A number of captive populations have had severe and significant disease outbreaks. And the apparent susceptibility of endangered species to disease argues for extreme caution in both establishing captive breeding programs and also in returning captive-bred animals to the wild.

Another problem has to do with physical and financial require ments. These can be quite substantial. Many captive breeding pro grams currently are running between and per year. When you sum this over the life of the program, these funds could do a lot in terms of preserving and restoring habitat.

Despite the gravity of problems considered so far, one of the most serious impediments to success in long-term captive breeding lies in the failures of administrative continuity and commitment. In my own limited experience in the past two decades with endangered species conservation, I have witnessed serious periodic deteriora tions in the quality and commitment to programs for several en dangered birds.

Personnel involved in these programs have necessarily changed over time, and funding has waxed and waned without regard to programmatic requirements. I know of no reliable mechanism to ensure the continuity of efforts, and this same problem, of course, afflicts all human endeavors and institutions.

Most importantly, captive breeding can sometimes detract or pre empt better techniques. Captive breeding can divert attention from the real problems causing a species' decline and, in fact, can be come a technological fix that merely prolongs these problems and does little to rectify them.

Finally, one of the most limiting factors of captive breeding is that it has a single species focus. When one considers the current estimates are that we are going to lose between 25 and 50 percent of the species diversity that exists right now over the next 50 years, single species recovery efforts are really limited in scope and probably limited in value.

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