Matchmakers May Be Last Hope for Vanishing Species

Wanted: Big, beautiful beast, one of last of dying breed, as possible mate for same. Serious inquiries only.

That is the pitch a group of zoologists is making to zookeepers around the country. Their matchmaking service, a sort of modern-day Noah’s Ark, could be the last hope for many wild animals facing extinction.

This ark is fashioned from computer software and cooperation.

Through it, a black rhino calf was born in Detroit to a mother swapped from Oklahoma City whose seven previous offspring had lived less than a month. “Logistically, it was difficult and expensive,” said Doris Applebaum, registrar at the Detroit Zoological Park. She said the switch cost around $6,000, but “it was well worth it.” The calf, born in March, is doing well, Applebaum said.

The black rhino is declining at a rate of 97% per generation, said Nathan Flesness, director of International Species Information System, which compiles data for the animal swapping program. The animal’s population has plummeted from 70,000 in 1970 to about 3,000 today, and captivity may be the key to its preservation.

“Humans shoot them to sell their horns for enough to retire on for the rest of their life,” Flesness said.

The program, with headquarters here in the Minnesota Zoo, is called the Species Survival Plan. It was set up by the American Assn. of Zoological Parks and Aquariums in 1980 with a goal not only of matching animals, but also of persuading zookeepers that donating or swapping some of their most prized possessions is in the long-term interest of their profession.

Fifty species--including the gorilla, cheetah and thick-billed parrot--so far have climbed aboard the computer ark. Thomas Foose, the program’s coordinator, said he hopes that number will increase tenfold by the start of the next century.

The choice of species to include usually comes down to “the big and the beautiful,” Flesness said. “It’s a long way short of everything, but it’s a lot better than doing nothing.”

Foose’s group tracks data, including genealogy and medical history, compiled by the ISIS on more than 96,000 living vertebrate specimens in 347 zoos and 32 countries.

Foose said that as a result of the gorilla program, for example, there is less inbreeding, so healthier babies are being born. About 15 gorillas have been born each year for the last 10 years with the population currently about 300. “We’ve gone from a situation where that population was declining to one where it’s increasing by about 2% or 3% a year,” he said. “That’s very healthy.”

Gorilla mating is difficult since long-established pairs tend to treat each other like brother and sister.

The solution, Flesness said, is just a plane ride away: “Put one of the two partners on an airplane, switch them to another zoo, and let them make friends.”

While conservationists once had misgivings about keeping exotic animals in captivity, they are realizing the role zoos can play in preservation, Flesness said.

Wildlife managers, he said, increasingly realize that they have a small population and that it is often in one place. “They want to take their species into captivity for insurance reasons, and they suddenly move into the same arena, the same set of challenges as zoos.”

The Puerto Rican parrot is an example. Forty-three of the birds exist in the wild on the island, and an equal number live in captivity there.

“If one bad hurricane comes, they’ll not only wipe out the wild birds but at least endanger the ones in the aviary,” Flesness said. Conservationists, he said, have agreed that a few of the animals should be moved to a mainland zoo.

The prospects of easing animals back into the wild look bleak, he said, as long as humans keep encroaching on their natural habitat.

“The species that are going to make it out there are the ones that can handle lots of bulldozers, highway disturbance, and little teeny spots of semi-wild land left,” he said.

“The big ones are the ones that are . . . going to go unless we do something radically different. What’s surprising is that they’re going to go in our lifetime.”