¶ … Rapid Population Growth...

Though I am impressed and elated at the black-footed ferret's proven ability to come back from the brink of extinction and repopulate its natural habitat after captive breeding, something in the first paragraph of this article caught my eye and deserves, I believe some measure of reaction. What attracted my attention and caused me to bristle slightly is the fact that many endangered species bred in captivity and then re-released to their natural habitats "fail to produce self-sustaining populations" due in part to the "persistence of the environmental factors that caused the species to become endangered." Now, it does not particularly raise my wrath that the authors include this seemingly obvious statement in the first two sentences of their article, but the fact that this fact needs to be included is somewhat maddening. If the same environmental pressures that caused a species to become endangered still exist after a captive population has been bred, it seems like the most basic application of common sense would tell someone that this new population of the species will face the same endangerment.

The way that endangered species and their environments are handled is in need of reevaluation, and I believe that this statement by the authors of this article is proof of this. Obviously, breeding a species in captivity only to have them become endangered again when reintroduced to the wild is a waste of effort and money. I am not suggesting that instead nothing should be done to save these species, but what gets done needs to happen in a wiser fashion. The first -- and also most difficult -- step would be increasing environmental protection laws, especially in areas with endangered species. This would enable for quicker identification of problems leading to endangerment and more effective solutions. In addition, captive populations should be maintained until sufficient evidence as to the area's suitability for repopulation is ascertained.