ENDANGERED SPECIES

By Terese Svoboda. Ecological Restoration, 2007

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SIR Christopher Anderson's article about the hazards of reintroducing endangered species 1 is timely, given current interest in the role of disease in population dynamics and conservation. But I think he may have spoken with an unusual subset of biologists in coming to the conclusion that most researchers in the area believe that maintaining maximum genetic diversity in wild populations by release of captive animals outweighs the potential costs of simultaneously introducing new pathogens that might extinguish the wild population. It is very difficult to find evidence that any wild population is in danger of extinction because of lack of genetic heterogeneity2. We also know of several species whose populations have increased and are surviving now despite extreme homogeneity. The cheetah Acinonyx jubatus is an example. It is so genetically homogeneous that animals from south and west Africa reciprocally accept skin grafts , yet it survives throughout Africa. In fact, it is beginning to look as if demographic and environmental stochasticity are usually more important problems for small isolated populations than is lack of genetic diversity4. And of course, if a wild population is in danger for genetic or demographic or ecological reasons, then in most cases the factors that brought it to that state are probably the real threat, not those biological problems. To take just one example, the Virunga mountain gorilla population Gorilla gorilla numbers about 300 animals, that is, far less than the commonly quoted figure of 500 for large mammals. Even with an effective population size of only

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