Re: Albino Dino

[Michael de Sosa <sheepowns@yahoo.com>]

From: Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>

> Hence why white lions and tigers are extremely rare in the wild - and why, in 
> my
> oppinion, zoos should sterilise their white animals at birth rather than
> encourage such maladaptive traits (assuming there are plans to re-introduce
> captive bred animals into the wild at some point in the future). 

This is in my opinion completely unnecessary. For one thing, it's quite easy to 
prevent a captive animal in a zoo from breeding without resorting to any sort 
of medical procedure. For another, if an animal is rare enough to make the 
investment in resources and time of a reintroduction worthwhile, then there 
will definitely be a studbook showing the bloodlines of all or most of the 
individuals of that species in accredited institutions (in North America this 
is one of the primary functions of a Species Survival Plan, or SSP). They're 
not just throwing any old Arabian oryx or California condor back out in the 
wild, release candidates are chosen very carefully from the studbook and 
bloodlines which show genetic abnormalities are ruled out... release candidates 
are the best of the best, like astronauts. So it's not like white tiger genes 
would somehow sneak their way back into the wild through captive-bred tigers... 
you could be sure that no offspring of a
 white tiger would be a release candidate, if you didn't want it to be.

In addition, it's very rare for captive-bred carnivores to be released back 
into the wild in the first place, as they don't usually have the hunting skills 
necessary to survive on their own. There has been a bit of success in creating 
mixed packs of African wild dogs, mixing captive and wild-bred individuals so 
that the captive-bred animals will have a sort of support system to obtain food 
while they learn how to hunt. This certainly wouldn't work for tigers, as they 
are solitary hunters and would have nobody to teach them. I doubt it would work 
for lions either, as prides are almost invariably intolerant of unrelated 
females. The wolves (in)famously released into Yellowstone were translocated 
from Canada and were not captive-bred.

Finally, mutant white animals are definitely a tourist draw and bring in income 
which can then be used for conservation programs for other species. I'm not 
saying that zoos should intentionally try to create white animals by inbreeding 
or other means, but neither should we seek to eradicate the mutation from our 
captive populations.