Amphibian captive breeding programmes 383
in less developed countries (Zippel et al., 2011), sometimes in politically and economically complex situations. To be effect- ive, programmes must be designed to overcome a number common of issues by developing strategic partnerships to build capacity within range states (Meredith et al., 2017). Zoos and aquariums (hereafter zoos) are important for
captive breeding programmes and other conservation ini- tiatives, both ex situ and in situ (WAZA, 2005). Although the number of amphibian species held in zoos along with the proportional representation of globally threatened spe- cies has increased significantly during 1994–2014 (Dawson et al., 2016), amphibians remain underrepresented in zoos compared to other vertebrate taxa (Conde et al., 2013). The funding, expertise and commitment to conservation provided by zoos make them key partners for programmes within species’ geographical range that have low existing capacity for captive breeding (Harding et al., 2016; Griffiths, 2017). In addition, zoos contribute through the keeping of threatened species in-house (Zippel et al., 2011; Dawson et al., 2016; Brady et al., 2017). Several factors hamper effective captive breeding pro-
grammes. Lack of resources (mainly space, staff time and budget), expertise and management interest is a major bar- rier to keeping threatened amphibians in zoos in developed countries (Barber&Poole, 2014; Brady et al., 2017).O’Rourke (2014) noted that captive breeding programmes are usually led by natural scientists, who tend to focus on biological suc- cess factors over social and political ones, although all those factors influence the effectiveness of captive breeding. The impacts of human dimensions such as cognitive biases and decision-making are widely recognized in many non-conser- vation sectors (Helmreich, 2000; Edmondson, 2011;Hickey et al., 2017; see review by Catalano et al., 2018). Despite the importance of organizational culture, institutional systems and other human factors in determining the effectiveness of organizations, these barriers have rarely been examined in the captive breeding literature (Sutton, 2015). To improve our understanding of captive breeding pro-
grammes, we must examine the people and management practices that drive them, as well as the social-ecological sys- tems within the regions in which they occur. Effective pro- grammes should be systematically and strategically designed to overcome persistent challenges of conserving wild pop- ulations (Pritchard et al., 2012;IUCN, 2013). During 2009– 2014, the Amphibian Ark’s Conservation Needs Assessment (Conservation Needs Assessment, 2019) process was imple- mented to include characteristics beyond IUCN threat status and range, namely the ability of conservation practitioners to mitigate known threats, availability of protected habitat, scien- tific and cultural significance, suitability for husbandry ana- logue programmes, and availability of founding populations (Johnson et al., 2018). Programme planning often lacks the inclusion of human, social and institutional factors that determine the programme’s effectiveness.
Here, we aimed to identify barriers and enablers, in
particular human and organizational barriers, of amphibian captive breeding programmes in Latin America, Africa and Asia. We provide recommendations for increasing the cap- acity and effectiveness of programmes in priority regions through partnerships and support.
Methods
Interviews with programme managers The Amphibian Ark supports and monitors captive breed- ing programmes globally, and their database (Amphibian Ark, 2019) logs milestones for individual programmes along with institution and contact information. Complementing the Amphibian Ark database with our knowledge, we identi- fied 50 programmes in Latin America, Africa and Asia that were established for the conservation of one or more species in country, or using analogous species to develop husbandry protocols for amore threatened species.We defined a practi- tioner (ormanager) as any person involved in the design and implementation of a programme. All research and conserva- tion programmes at a single institution were considered as one programme.We approached and interviewed managers using methods recommended by Dillman et al. (2014), in English or Spanish.We aimed to complete 20 interviews, to meet recommendations for in-depth, exploratory interview studies (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015). We identified four research themes through consulta-
tions with key experts from Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, the Amphibian Ark and a former programme man- ager: (1) barriers and enablers, (2) partnerships, (3) progress of programmes and (4) programme structure. We designed a semi-structured interview guide (Supplementary Material 1) to address each theme using an inductive (qualitative) methodology, complemented with quantitative questions to address key aspects of the research, such as budgets and number of partnerships (Newing, 2010). We conducted three pilot interviews to develop a final
interview guide containing interviewer prompts and defini- tions (Dillman et al., 2014). Managers interviewed during the pilots were subsequently contacted with additional ques- tions after piloting, allowing participants to expand on their initial responses. These interviews were included in the ana- lysis to increase the sample size. Interviews were conducted by BK in May and June 2017,
primarily in English, with six interviews conducted in Spanish by a trained assistant, and one interview conduct- ed with a Chinese translator. The interviews were semi- structured, allowing respondents to emphasize topics im- portant to their work, whilst exploring new themes (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015). The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim.
Oryx, 2021, 55(3), 382–392 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000332
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