Call Of The Wild

Many zoos with home-grown breeding programmes involve in international cooperation initiatives to return animals to the wild. Attention is focused on the areas of
previous success, such as the lowland gorilla sanctuary at the Lefini Wildlife Reserve, some 240 kilometres from Brazzaville, Congo, where the gorillas reintroduced to their natural habitat adapted
to the conditions of the forest speedily.

Other breeding programmes include the rare Przewalski horse (Equus przewalskii), native of the Central Asian steppe, which has been reintroduced into Mongolia from Port Lympne (United Kingdom) via
the Netherlands, where these horses had been assembled for the flight to Ulan Bator and then on to the grasslands of the 60,000-hectare Hustain Nuru Steppe Reserve, where hunting is illegal.

Another example of this international cooperation involves the scimitar-horned oryx · back in North Africa after nearly a century, with l4 of these desert antelopes now roaming freely across the vast
expanse of two of Tunisia's national parks. In the forefront of the move both to save the oryx (Oryx dammah) and secure the species' long-term survival are biologist Simon Wakefield and keeper Ian
Goodwin from UK's Marwell Zoological Park, Hampshire.

Five pairs of British-bred oryx are already at Bou Hedma National Park, a Tunisian reserve, where more than 80 of these antelopes introduced from different countries flourish. In the latest
initiative, Wakefield and Goodwin are working closely with specialists from Bratislava Zoo in Slovakia. The selected oryx have not only been drawn from zoos in Slovakia but from sanctuaries in the
Czech Republic, France, Germany and Italy.

Mary Talbot Rosevear, director of the London-based Federation of Zoological Gardens of Great Britain and Ireland, underlines how far the process of returning animals to the wild transcends national
barriers: "One of the reasons that the UK is able to play a key role in these initiatives is because stringent legal requirements have long been built into the running of the country's zoos so as
to safeguard their health and survival. This enables us to nurture seasoned specialists when it comes to conservation advice and knowledge as well as offering appropriate species''.

An added strength lies in the Federation's high profile membership of the World Conservation Union, based in Gland, Switzerland, which lays down strict guidelines to govern the reintroduction of
species to the wild and whose member organisations are engaged in appropriate animal conservation programmes.

Of the oryx programme, Marwell's Ian Goodwin said: "My job in Tunisia has included helping with the transportation of the oryx and the early stages of reintroduction; nine gently sedated females
were slowly mixed together in a medium-sized enclosure. There was constant monitoring of the animals' health. We also carried out surveys to see which plants the oryx liked to eat and which were
safe. We monitored their water intake over 24 hours. We were also involved in the training of the keepers whose job it is to look after the animals.''

Two species of gazelle, once proud inhabitants of the Saudi desert, were hunted to near extinction 35 years ago but now numbers are set to increase, thanks to a continuous reintroduction programme at
the King Khalid Wildlife Research Centre in Saudi Arabia.

At the conclusion of the breeding programme, the gazelles (Gazella subgutturosa) inoculated against foot and mouth disease and such infections as brucella, were, after a spell in pens, introduced to
the Uruq Bani Ma'Arid Protected Area, one of the world's largest expanses of sand dunes stretching into the interior of the Empty Quarter.

Ecologist and planning team member Dr Tim Wacher said: "We kept contact initially with the gazelles through their radio collars which emitted beeps and we were able to locate them from the air. We
relied from the start on local knowledge and learnt that it was likely that sand gazelles would range widely into the dunes but might withdraw to their western margins in hot summer seasons.
Additionally, the Bedouin alerted us if groups had strayed away from the protected area. Within a very few weeks, the gazelles had become naturally adapted to desert life, digging into the sand to
find juicy roots and savour the water-rich fruits of melons''.

Erosion of species is the depressing prospect facing many conservationists. Bruce Berry, director of the New Forest Owl Sanctuary, Hampshire, that maintains a stock of some 60 owls, including 25
breeding pairs, said: "Populations are threatened where there is extensive deforestation and widespread reliance on pesticides but there are signs that the importance of conservation measures are
being more widely recognised''. He points to Malaysia and Thailand as being noticeably progressive, with stocks of barn owls from Britain going to Bangkok's Chiang Mai Zoo.

A source of anxiety is the diminution of stocks of the Asiatic lion (Leo persica) whose numbers in the north-western Indian state of Gujarat are believed to have shrunk to less than 300. London Zoo
and Chester Zoo in the English Midlands have come to the rescue by breeding lion cubs in captivity, but Chester's Pat Cade issued a warning: "It may be some time before captive-bred lions can be
reintroduced in areas where the lion population goes on declining and where people in places like Gujarat find it hard coping with fresh intakes. It's very much a long-term project''.

This is echoed by Callum Rankine, Habitats and Species Officer of the World Wide Fund for Nature, who says: "There is a deep-seated belief, going back thousands of years, that all carnivores
without exception are dangerous predators and killers. It is a view that all those dedicated to conservation initiatives are keen to break down where appropriate. Above all, there is a vital need for
good housekeeping which means not only applying available resources, not just where they are most

wanted, but where they will be the most beneficial for the animals

and the countries concerned''. (http://www.weboflife.co.uk