What is Intensive Breeding?
Intensive breeding is a breeding system which aims to get a specific desired genetic trait from a species. Intensive breeding is done in order to get various genetic variations (Colour variation – Figure 1) within a certain population, which will eventually lead to an economic incentive higher than that of an original colour variation species.
Intensive breeding has got its advantages and disadvantages. Selection for a rare trait is desired for the monetary benefit, where many game farmers don’t realise the drastic negative genetic impacts.
Hunting has always been a past-time where a lot of enthusiast participate in the hunting of wildlife living in their natural environment. They find pleasure in the stalking of the animal and finally bringing back the trophy (the hunted animal). These enthusiast would not get the same pleasure from the stalking and hunting of animals kept in captive conditions. People have hunted for specific traits which make the individual animal more valued than the rest of the individuals within the population. Some have also hunted just for the pleasure, and not for any specific reason. This practice has however had long-term effects on the genetic make-up of wildlife species.
Does the intensive breeding of game on game farms contribute to the protection and conservation of species?
In this day and age, many animals are critically threatened and could become extinct at a very fast rate. A few mentionable species in South Africa is the Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), the Rhino, Roan (Hippotragus equinus) and Sable Antelope (Hippotragus niger), and the Wild dog (Lycaon pictus).
The cheetah is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List status (Durant, et al 2008). ...
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...rupt native species and ecosystem hence making the restoration of both evolutional and ecological potential almost impossible. Whereas Donlan (2005) concluded that re-wilding North American is the best conservation strategy to the African and Asian threatened megafauna, meanwhile re-wilding will restores the evolutionary and ecological potentials in the process. In my point of view, Pleistocene re-wilding must not be implemented simply because the introduced species might fail to adapt to the new environment. High costs and disease outbreak are another challenge that can’t be ignored.
“Why Sport Hunting Is Cruel and Unnecessary” asserts “natural predators help maintain this balance by killing only the sickest and weakest individuals.” This is the key concept of natural selection that has proven effective throughout history; however, the introduction of invasive and nonnative species can cause an imbalance in population. Opponents would suggest banning hunting in order to allow populations to return to their natural number, but this ban has been proven ineffective in African counties. “How Hunting Helps Wildlife” outlines the detrimental effects a hunting ban can have on wildlife’s population. At one point in time Kenya banned hunting but reinstated hunting as 70 percent had been poached. The laws and regulations in place allowed the populations to be renewed, rising to their original numbers. While banning hunting may sound promising, it has the opposite effect of what is
Flocken endorses that “...hunters are not like natural predators.They target the largest specimens; with the biggest tusks, manes, antlers, or horns.” In Defense of Animals International (IDA) argues that hunters concentrate on“game” populations and ignore “non-game” species that may lead to overpopulation and unequal ecosystems. Therefore, it affects their ecosystem, and the animals’ families. Overall, the evidence proves trophy hunting hurts the environment, specifically conservation. Therefore, the hunters’ idea that trophy hunting actually helps conservation by killing some predators to maintain balance, is merely
One popular method of trying to increase the numbers of endangered species is by in vitro fertilization, or test tube babies. Scientists take the sperm from a male and an egg from a female and united them in the laboratory, then place the embryo into a surrogate mother, which is usually put inside a similar animal. For instance, a Bengal tiger cub was born to a Siberian t...
Humans have been hunting practically since the beginning of time. Take a moment to look back at our country’s founding fathers and Native Americans. People in that era hunted as a means of survival. We all possess the skills of stalking prey. It’s in our blood. Hunting is automatically instilled in us being at the top of the food chain. Although looking back into history, one can also find that some hunting has diminished animal populations practically to the verge of extinction. However these facts have not gone unnoticed. If hunting is well regulated, whether it be for sport or recreational involvement, and there are no major affects to the species, if anything it may help bring back species from the edge of extinction. “Several wildlife managers view recreational hunting as the principal basis for protection of wildlife.”(Lebel)
Hybridization is commonly defined as the interbreeding of genetically differentiated populations, where the gene flow between the two species has been reestablished. This process is more likely to happen in recently diverged populations that have a secondary contact, in which the isolation barrier has been removed. Hybridization can lead to a variety of evolutionary outcomes, depending on the fitness of the hybrids relative to the parental forms. Some of them will be beneficial, such as the effects of maintaining or increasing diversity through stable hybrid zones, the rescue of small inbred populations, the origin and transfer of adaptations, the reinforcement of reproductive isolation, and the formation of new hybrid lineages (Todesco, 2016). In the other hand, hybridization can also reduce diversity through the breakdown of reproductive barriers, leading to the merger of previously distinctive evolutionary lineages, and the extinction of populations or species.
Hank Greely, a Stanford professor who publicly supports de-extinction, acknowledges that there are important risks that should be taken into consideration before reviving lost species. Issues of animal welfare, health, environment, politics and morality should all be carefully deliberated on to determine that the good would outweigh the bad5. Many ethical drawbacks and arguments have been raised against the support of de-extinction alongside the arguments that many have against the process of cloning. A conservational issue that advocates have brought up is the idea that cloning extinct species will hinder other efforts to protect endangered animals from future extinction.XX According to this argument attention and funding for the protection
Shreeve, jamie “Species Revival: Should We Bring Back Extinct Animals?” ngm.nationalgeographic.com 5 March 2013, 22 March 2014
Various plant and animal species depend on each other for what each offers and these diverse species ensures natural sustainability for all life forms. A healthy and solid biodiversity can recover itself from a variety of disasters. It is estimated that the current species extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it would naturally be. Therefore, there is an urgent need, not only to manage and conserve the biotic wealth, but also restore the degraded ecosystems. c) Captivity breeding species can again be reintroduced into the wild.
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LEISA Magazine, January 17, 2014. Retrieved March 9, 2011, from http://www.agriculturenetwork.org/. magazines/global/genetic-engineering-not-the-only-option/genetic-engineering-not-the-only-option-editorial. Pelletier, C. (2010). The 'Paleter'. The future evolution of genetic engineering.
The dynamic natural environment and abundant wildlife are the most prominent features of the African continent. Due to its wide variety of biomes ranging from tropical forests to arid deserts, Africa consists of bountiful wildlife diversity. However, because of environmentally harmful human interactions, the variety of biomes is shrinking to all-time lows, which causes wildlife to die out. These detrimental human interactions, particularly livestock overgrazing and desertification, occur partly because the native people who depend on the land for daily life do not realize the potential benefits of wildlife and the unsustainability of their current ways. Poaching for horns and other valuable animal parts has also contributed to the decreasing amount of species present in the wild. However, the methods for conserving the wildlife environment differ in how they address the issue of the dwindling wildlife populations. The conventional method of conservation created in the mold of the Convention Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora in their Natural State (also known as the London Convention) involves the complete centralization of wildlife resources to the government. The newer, more effective method called the Sustainable Use Approach makes drastic changes to the London Convention principles by decentralizing ownership of wildlife and allowing small communities and villages to manage it themselves.
Quantitative genetics consists of constantly changing characters. From the name of quantitative genetics, it pursues to ‘quantify’ changes in the frequency distribution of traits that cannot simply be located in discrete phenotypic classes (Falconer, D.S. 1996). Upon analysis of the future of quantitative genetics being relevant in this age of rapid advancement in molecular genetics, it has been useful to evolutionary biology which quantitative genetics has been allocated a major boost from the extensive effort/work of Lande-which portrays how the actual equations of quantitative genetics can be extended and used to solve situations beyond livestock and the improvements of crops. In the activities of quantitative genetics in this age, there seems to be a risk in quantitative genetics falling on rough times, having being known as the ‘old’ way of molecular genetics or ‘The out-moded’ as opposed to the comparison of the new types/areas of molecular genetics of today’s age and era. The intention is to bring awareness of the importance of the use of quantitative genetics and placing it in proper perspective. As well as to target the amazing successes, especially central questions of evolutionary biology that can only be statistically answered fully via the requirement of a quantitative genetic perspective. Although through the quantitative genetics theory, the ability and availability to take into consideration the inheritance of quantitative traits such as fertility, the body size, etc is of high importance. Quantitative genetics is also an important contribution to the understanding of inbreeding depression which is the reduced productiveness of the offspring of closely related individuals. The counter-intuitive outcome of quantita...
In our world today we have approximately 26,021 endangered species. Endangered species are organisms that may possible become extinct. The term 'endangered species' refers to all species that fits this description. However some conservation biologists and scientists normally use the term ‘endangered species’ to refer to species that are put on the IUCN(International Union for Conservation of Nature)Red List. Many factors can be looked at when considering the conservation status of a species. Factors such as human threats or environmental threats can cause a species to become endangered.
Shah, Anup. Loss of Biodiversity and Extinctions. Global Issues, 19 Jan. 2014. Web. 19 May 2014.