In addition to their bird breeding, the San Diego Safari Park breeds mammals. Anecdotally, it appears as though we have an easier time breeding hooved mammals than other types of mammals. There are, for example, less than 500 wild addaxes (addaxen?) but over three times as many being bred in captivity.
This means that sights like this one may be on the rise.
In honor of Independence Day, here is an all American bird.
The San Clemente Loggerhead Shrike lives on an island used by the US Navy for target practice. Due to the importation of goats (and, presumably, bombs), their population dropped down to 14 birds. Today, there are nearly 200. This is due to a combination of the Navy improving the use of their land, such as removing goats (but not, presumably, bombs) and captive breeding.
The graph below is particularly interesting because it shows the value of captive breeding and reintroduction programs. These programs, of course, take a while to take effect as animals must reach sexual maturity, but when they get there, wow.
(Facebook people should click here to see the graph: http://www.iws.org/species_loggerhead_shrike.html )
They claim this is an openbill stork, but the bill sure looks closed to me.
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