15 - Captive breeding and predator control: a successful strategy for conservation in Western Australia

Summary

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES

The ultimate goal for captive breeding programmes must be to reintroduce animals to the wild; however, the value of a captive breeding programme is limited if there is no available habitat. Processes threatening native fauna in Australia include loss of habitat from clearing and land degradation, fragmentation of habitat, introduction of domestic stock, introduction of competitors such as rabbits, and predation by foxes and cats (www.environment.gov.au/bg/wildlife/lists/ktp/index). Many of these processes are threats to wildlife anywhere in the world, but integrated ex situ and in situ conservation programmes in Australia face an unusual habitat management issue, namely the control of introduced predators, in particular foxes and cats. There have recently been major successes where conservation reintroduction programmes have been linked with predator control. Three Western Australian mammal species (woylie, tammar wallaby and quenda) have been removed from State and National Threatened Fauna lists (see http://www.biodiversity.environment.gov.au/wildlife/lists/anzecc/index) as a result of broad-scale fox control and translocations carried out as part of the Western Shield Fauna Recovery Programme of the Western Australia Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM). Perth Zoo and CALM are working collaboratively to achieve similar outcomes with a range of threatened species. In this chapter we aim to demonstrate the principles involved in this conservation strategy, as readers may be unfamiliar with the dual concept of controlling one wild population to protect another.