Captive breeding not the answer

BORNEO Rhino Alliance executive director Datuk Dr John Payne knows more than most people about trying to save a critically endangered species.

For many years now he has been trying to save the Sumatran rhinoceros – which is effectively extinct in the wild in Sabah – with captive breeding. Sabah’s last two rhinos in captivity are the female Iman, in her 20s, and the male Tam, in his 30s.

But when it comes to the Malayan tiger, Payne doesn’t think a captive breeding programme is a good idea.

“The Sumatran rhinos have been dying out since the 1930s. They were small in numbers and in scattered populations, and they didn’t breed enough. There should have been a breeding programme for the rhinos 50 years ago.

“Tigers are different. Even though their numbers are low, they are still breeding in the wild,” he said in a recent e-mail interview.

We had asked him whether captive breeding should be introduced for the Malayan tiger, which is now facing record low numbers in the wild (see “National symbol about to disappear” opposite).

Payne says he does not advocate captive breeding for tigers due to the high costs of such a programme compared with that for rhinos.

“Such a programme goes on for decades – it’s a big commitment – and tigers must be fed with meat. Rhinos can feed on grass.

“And in the end, can you re-introduce them into the wild? The animals would have lost their ability to hunt. People don’t mind the rhinos but they may be scared of the tigers,” he says, adding that instead of captive breeding, more effort ought to be put into halting the poaching.

In reply to the same question, Perhilitan (the Wildlife and National Parks Department) said a tiger breeding programme is part of wildlife conservation programmes run by zoos but did not go into further detail.

Captive breeding of Malayan tigers has also been reported in zoos in the United States, with the birth of cubs recorded at the Bronx Zoo in New York City in 2016, and at the Palm Beach Zoo and Conservation Society in Florida in 2011.

The latter is apparently a recognised leader in the United States’ Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ (Aza) Species Survival Programme (SSP) for the breeding of Malayan tigers.

WWF-Malaysia’s Tiger Landscape lead spokesman Dr Mark Rayan Darmaraj says rather than a captive breeding programme for tigers, he is more inclined towards having one for their favourite prey species, the sambar deer, which is also facing threats to its survival.

There is presently a six-year moratorium on hunting the deer.

“What we really need now is a proper captive breeding programme for sambar deer, the tiger’s preferred prey species. This deer species is declining due to over-hunting and poaching in most of our forests.

“Our research shows that tiger densities are higher in areas where there is higher availability of sambar deer.

“It would be best to work on a sambar deer breeding programme now that is catered towards augmenting prey for the recovery of wild Malayan tigers,” he points out.

Dr Darmaraj thinks that, with enough protection for both the tigers and their prey, there is still time to save these animals in the wild.

From a conservation biologist’s point of view, doing all we can to save the tiger, he says, includes, “establishing a captive breeding programme with the intention of releasing its participants into the wild”.

“But this should not be prioritised over saving the wild tiger, especially since resources are scarce,” he says, pointing out that releasing captive bred tigers to repopulate the wild would be expensive as well as complicated.

Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (MyCat)’s Dr Kae Kawanishi seems to agree.

“Biologically, 150 Malayan tigers can rebound, but politically, they are doomed,” she wrote in her letter to The Star (“No time left to save our tigers”, Views, Dec 11, 2018; online at bit.ly/star_tiger).