Page 20 - Gateways_2017_Summer

Successful Breeding continued
more effective at telling the conservation
stories of species in distress when there’s mature naturally breed throughout
a memorable young animal to represent
those species. Studies have shown that
people who connect with wildlife in a
zoo setting are more likely to contribute
to saving that species. And hands
down, there is no better way to make a
connection than by encountering a lovable
young animal and learning about what
its species is facing in the wild, whether
that’s through reading signs at the zoo or
talking with a volunteer or staff member.
Learning the Rules
If animals could understand the reasons we
promote breeding programs, they might
appreciate our motivations, but for them,
they just instinctively need to reproduce.
The purpose of life is to make more of
itself, and reproduction is one of the main snakes.) Species Survival Plans (SSPs) of
mechanisms for accomplishing that. For
20 GATEWAYS | A PERFECT MATCH
Guam Kingfisher
male
The Chicago Zoological Society
has had long involvement in
caring for Guam kingfishers.
Top: An animal care specialist
feeds a kingfisher chick.
Left: Dr. Mike Adkesson, vice
president of clinical medicine,
examines the eye of a kingfisher.
most species, females who are sexually aquariums and indicating the individuals
that should move among zoos to mate.
their lives. Of course, the strategies for
how they do so change from species to Chicago Zoological Society staff
species. Small animals like shrews tend have been intimately involved with
to breed often, while larger animals such TAGs over the decades. Our senior
as bison breed less frequently. Short-lived vice president of animal programs, Bill
species reproduce more often to make Zeigler, helped start the first TAG—
up for their truncated life expectancy. now called the Crocodilian Advisory
Group—in 1986. He was also a
There are groups of experts who keep cofounder of the antelope TAG in 1993.
these strategies in mind and, for any type
of animal, determine the appropriate The Best Strateg y
size of the collective population in zoos No two methods for introducing species
and aquariums. AZA’s Taxon Advisory are alike. You would think that rhinos
Groups (TAGs) determine the cap for how are rhinos, but that’s not the case. White
many of any particular taxon are needed rhinos are herd animals, giving them a
to maintain a viable overall population. natural tendency to be together. But black
(A taxon is a word designating a broad rhinos, the kind living at Brookfield Zoo,
group of a type of animal, such as bears or are loners. We let them get to know each
other only for breeding, when a female
AZA do the actual groundwork of tracking is in estrus, and the situation is under
the lineages of animals in zoos and
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