Reintroduction Biology

Integrating Science and Management

John G. Ewen, Doug P. Armstrong, Kevin A. Parker, Philip J. Seddon

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781444355819
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Biology
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book aims to further advance the field of reintroduction biology beyond the considerable progress made since the formation of the IUCN/SSC Re-introduction Specialist Group. Using an issue-based framework that purposely avoids a structure based on case studies the book's central theme is advocating a strategic approach to reintroduction where all actions are guided by explicit theoretical frameworks based on clearly defined objectives. Issues covered include husbandry and intensive management, monitoring, and genetic and health management. Although taxonomically neutral there is a recognised dominance of bird and mammal studies that reflects the published research in this field. The structure and content are designed for use by people wanting to bridge the research-management gap, such as conservation managers wanting to expand their thinking about reintroduction-related decisions, or researchers who seek to make useful applied contributions to reintroduction.

Chapter 1

Animal Translocations: What Are They and Why Do We Do Them?

Philip J. Seddon1, W. Maartin Strauss2 and John Innes3

1Department of Zoology, University of Otago, New Zealand

2Department of Environmental Sciences, UNISA, South Africa

3Landcare Research, Hamilton, New Zealand

‘Translocation is now well entrenched as a conservation tool, with the numbers of animals being released in reintroduction and re-enforcement projects increasing almost exponentially each year.’

Concluding Comments

Introduction

For as long as people have been moving from one place to another, which is as long as humans have been ‘human’, animals and plants have been moved with them, often hidden, unnoticed or ignored, but also as valued cargo. These so-called ‘ethnotramps’ include economically and culturally favoured species such as deer, macaque, civets, wallabies, cassowaries and wild-caught songbirds that were commonly carried around with humans (Heinsohn, 2001).

The variety of animals shown to have been translocated by prehistoric human colonists has been described as ‘astonishing’, with archaeological evidence of numerous and widespread human-mediated introductions as far back as tens of millennia, during the Pleistocene (Grayson, 2001). For example, it has been shown that people moved wild animals from the New Guinea mainland to and between islands to the east and west over at least the past 20 000 years, for food and trade items as humans expanded their distribution and sought to retain access to animals whose habits were already known to them (White, 2004). It was during the Holocene (from ∼11 000 years before the present), however, that the translocation of non-domesticated animals into novel habitats became one of the most significant human impacts on native animal populations (Kirch, 2005).

Clearly there are many reasons to translocate animals and some broad-scale classifications have been proposed, for example to distinguish between conservation translocations and those for commercial or amenity values (Hodder & Bullock, 1997), and along the way the terminology relating to translocations has become confused, contradictory and ambiguous. In this chapter we provide a framework for classifying the different motivations for animal translocation. We propose a simple decision tree that will enable conservation managers to categorize easily the different types of translocation, from reintroductions to assisted colonizations, and standardize the terminology applied in the species restoration literature. Throughout this chapter terms given in italics are defined in Box 1.1.

Box 1.1 Glossary and Definitions

Analogue species	Closely related form that could be used as an ecological replacement for an extinct species (Parker et al., 2010)
Assisted colonization	Translocation of species beyond their natural range to protect them from human-induced threats, such as climate change (Ricciardi & Simberlof, 2009a)
Assisted migration	Synonym for assisted colonization
Augmentation	Synonym for re-enforcement
Benign introduction	Synonym for conservation introduction
Biological control	Intentional use of parasitoid, predator, pathogen, antagonist or competitor to suppress a pest population (Hoddle, 2004)
Classical biocontrol	The introduction of exotic natural enemies to control exotic pests (Thomas & Willis, 1998)
Conservation introduction	An attempt to establish a species, for the purposes of conservation, outside its recorded distribution but within an appropriate habitat and ecogeographical area (IUCN, 1998)
Ecological replacement	Conservation introduction of the most suitable extant form to fill the ecological niche left vacant by the extinction of a species (Seddon & Soorae, 1999)
Ecological restoration	The process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed (SER, 2004)
Establishment	Survival and successful breeding by founder individuals and their offspring; this is a prerequisite for, but not a guarantee of, population persistence
Follow-up translocation	Where one or more additional translocations are conducted to supplement an initial population established by reintroduction (Armstrong & Ewen, 2001)
Introduction	Intentional or accidental dispersal by a human agency of a living organism outside its historically known native range (IUCN, 1987)
Managed relocation	Synonym for assisted colonization
Marooning	Translocation to a predator-free offshore island
Persistence	The likelihood of population decline or extinction over some appropriate taxon-specific time frame
Re-enforcement	Addition of individuals to an existing population of conspecifics (IUCN, 1998)
Re-establishment	Synonym for reintroduction that implies the reintroduction has resulted in establishment (IUCN, 1998)
Rehabilitation	The managed process whereby a displaced, sick, injured or orphaned wild animal regains the health and skills it requires to function normally and live self-sufficiently (IWRC, 2009)
Reintroduction	Intentional movement of an organism into a part of its native range from which it has disappeared or become extirpated in historic times (IUCN, 1987)
Reintroduction biology	Research undertaken to improve the outcomes of reintroductions and other translocations (Armstrong & Seddon, 2008)
Relocation	Synonym for translocation
Restocking	Synonym for re-enforcement
Restoration ecology	The science upon which the practice of ecological restoration is based (SER, 2004)
Species restoration	The application of any of a wide range of management tools, including translocation, that aim to improve the conservation status of wild populations
Subspecific substitution	A subset of ecological replacement where the replacement taxon is a subspecies (Seddon & Soorae, 1999)
Supplementation	Synonym for re-enforcement
Translocation	Movement of living organisms from one area with free release in another (IUCN, 1987)
Transplantation	Synonym for translocation

The Translocation Spectrum

Seddon (2010) defined a conservation translocation spectrum, ranging from reintroductions through to forms of conservation introduction. Figure 1.1 broadens the scope and provides a framework for considering all motivations for moving wild animals. The first, simple, bifurcation divides movements into those that are accidental or incidental and those that are intentional (Figure 1.1). Strictly speaking, accidental movements of wild animals are not translocations in the sense intended by the 1987 definition (IUCN, 1987). This IUCN definition, however, lacks mention of intent contained within a later, but confusing, redefinition (IUCN, 1998) that erroneously appears synonymous with re-enforcement and wild-to-wild movements. We take it that translocations are the deliberate and mediated (IUCN, 1998) movement of organisms, from any source, captive or wild, from one area to free release in another (IUCN, 1987). Thus translocation is the overarching term.

Figure 1.1 The translocation spectrum.

Not all translocations relate to the conservation of the species being moved. The next division in our framework therefore asks the question: is conservation of the target species the primary concern? (Figure 1.1). A split between conservation and non-conservation is in some senses simplistic and naive. Multiple, sometimes indirect, conservation benefits may accrue through translocations for, for example, recreational, commercial or wildlife rehabilitation motivations, not the least being opportunities for increased public engagement with nature and the enhanced public support for conservation measures that can arise from this engagement. Nevertheless, it is useful to make the distinction around primary concerns as many translocations may have multiple objectives and not uncommonly enhancement of the conservation status of the species may exist as a secondary goal.

Non-Conservation Translocations

There are at least seven types of translocation for which conservation is not the primary aim (note that species conservation may be an associated aim and protection of individual animals of endangered species may be a primary aim): non-lethal management of problem animals, commercial and recreational, biological control, aesthetic, religious, wildlife rehabilitation and animal rights activism. One of the characteristics of many of the non-conservation translocations is that they are introductions, with the sometime exception of non-lethal management and wildlife rehabilitation.

Non-Lethal Management of Problem Animals

As urban, suburban and agricultural landscapes spread, and where natural populations of wildlife species recover or expand, the potential for human–wildlife conflicts increases. In the United States, for instance, many states have Nuisance Wildlife Control Operator (NWCO) programmes in response to increased complaints of urban wildlife conflicts (O'Donnell & DeNicola, 2006). The most common forms of conflict are predation of livestock (Bradley et al., 2005), attacks on humans and their domestic pets (Goodrich & Miquelle, 2005) and damage to property (Gammons et al., 2009; Herr et al., 2008). In large part due to public attitudes, lethal management of so-called problem wildlife is not a favoured option and instead a standard method of dealing with problem individuals is to capture and translocate them away from the focal point of conflict. The numbers of animals involved can be significant; for example, in 1994 in Illinois alone NWCO permittees moved >18 000 animals, including >13 000 raccoons (Procyon lotor), squirrels (Sciurus spp.) and bats, and throughout the US some hun...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contributors
• Memorium of Don Merton
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Animal Translocations: What Are They and Why Do We Do Them?
• Chapter 2: A Tale of Two Islands: The Rescue and Recovery of Endemic Birds in New Zealand and Mauritius
• Chapter 3: Selecting Suitable Habitats for Reintroductions: Variation, Change and the Role of Species Distribution Modelling
• Chapter 4: The Theory and Practice of Catching, Holding, Moving and Releasing Animals
• Chapter 5: Dispersal and Habitat Selection: Behavioural and Spatial Constraints for Animal Translocations
• Chapter 6: Modelling Reintroduced Populations: The State of the Art and Future Directions
• Chapter 7: Monitoring for Reintroductions
• Chapter 8: Adaptive Management of Reintroduction
• Chapter 9: Empirical Consideration of Parasites and Health in Reintroduction
• Chapter 10: Methods of Disease Risk Analysis for Reintroduction Programmes
• Chapter 11: The Genetics of Reintroductions: Inbreeding and Genetic Drift
• Chapter 12: Genetic Consequences of Reintroductions and Insights from Population History
• Chapter 13: Managing Genetic Issues in Reintroduction Biology
• Chapter 14: Summary
• Index