we concentrated on our own 211. Furthermore, saving all these species is going to be impossible with the scarce finance and resources currently being made available. Sadly, it is probably going to be a question of trying to focus effort on those areas and species which are most likely to end in a positive result and on programmes that benefit the largest number of species within a single exercise. In that context, the Gouldian Finch is considered an indicator species for the general health of Australia’s northern savannahs. In other words, conservation activities which save the Gouldian Finch are highly likely to save a number of other species living in the same or similar habitat. Our scientists decided the first phase of any meaningful conservation programme is the scientific research. The experience of others had shown that if you do not first have a thorough understanding of why a species has declined you cannot possible save it. Logical when you think about it! As an example, the highest profile USA conservation programme is the California Condor Recovery Program which started in 1987 when all the surviving Condors left in the wild were captured and put into a captive breeding programme.
The first birds bred in captivity were released in 1992, but two years later were recaptured and brought back into captivity again because it
Sadly, it is probably going to be a question of trying to focus effort on those areas and species which are most likely to end in a positive result and on programmes that benefit the largest number of species within a single exercise.
18 BIRD SCENE
was realised that not enough research had been done to gain the knowledge of how to sustain them in the wild. Two years later the breed and release programme was continued and a hugely intensive management programme of the wild population implemented, so that by 2007, at a cost in excess of USA $35,000,000 the wild population had been increased to 210, some of which had actually been bred in the wild and the rest of the population being created by progressively releasing captive bred birds. Despite some apparent success, depressingly, scientists have now concluded that should the ongoing intensive conservation management stop, the current wild Condor population would relatively quickly become extinct again and paradoxically the more birds that survive in the wild the cost of conserving them will increase pro rata to well over the $2,000,000 or the $10,000 per bird per annum it has been costing. So now of course the programme faces the difficulties of gaining increased ongoing funding or letting the wild population die out. It is possible, that if the authorities concerned had appreciated the difficulties they were going to face and how much it was going to cost, the programme would never have started. We could quote numerous examples of limited or zero success in implementing breed and release programmes. The high profile and highly expensive attempts to reintroduce tigers, chimpanzee and elephants for example have failed completely. Closer to home the Rothschild’s (Bali) Mynah is another example of high endeavour and high cost with questionable results.
In 1990 there were only 15 Mynahs left in the
wild. A breed and release programme was implemented which at its height managed to get the wild population up to a maximum of 50 birds. By 2011 this mainland population was back down to six.
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