{"id":1180,"date":"2009-05-19T08:53:21","date_gmt":"2009-05-19T12:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2009-05-19T08:53:21","modified_gmt":"2009-05-19T12:53:21","slug":"national-zoos-conservation-research-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2009\/05\/19\/national-zoos-conservation-research-center\/","title":{"rendered":"National Zoo’s Conservation Research Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"img_1066\"<\/a>The Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington D.C.\u2019s gorgeous Rock Creek Park is renowned as one of the most diverse and most visited zoos in the country, welcoming more than two million visitors each year (for free \u2013 that\u2019s right, $0!). But the largely unknown gem of the place isn\u2019t in downtown D.C., but rather 70 miles east in Front Royal, Virginia, at the edge of Shenandoah National Park: the Conservation Research Center.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the CRC is closed to the general public (except for two days per year), I got a chance to tour the 3,200-acre facility last week with a group of Congressional staff, scientists and non-profit folks. \u00a0The CRC houses some 30 scientists, which, according to the Zoo\u2019s Acting Director Steve Monfort, is ten times as many as most zoos and aquariums. The scientists and keepers at the CRC deal mostly in conservation, using Species Survival Plans<\/a><\/span> to coordinate captive breeding and restoration of endangered species.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"copy-of-img_1089\"<\/a><\/span>Monfort himself gave us a guided tour of the expansive facility, explaining the problem of population crashes and bottlenecks as he showed us their red pandas, above. (Which hands-down rival giant pandas in the cuteness category. I\u2019m just saying.) He said that species survival plans assign priority to breeding animals based on their relatedness to other animals in the captive population.\u00a0 For animals like the Przewalski\u2019s Horse, whose populations crashed to only 14 individuals, the goal is to propagate as much of those founding animals\u2019 genetic material as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to have ever founder represented in every generation from then on,\u201d Monfort said. \u201cWhich is very, very tough.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tough, like in the case of cheetahs, which suffered their own non-human-induced population bottleneck some 1000 years ago.\u00a0 Craig Saffoe, the head cheetah breeder at the National Zoo, said the cheetahs are picky and if one doesn\u2019t <\/span>\"img_1056\"<\/a><\/span><\/span>like the other, there\u2019s very little the breeders can do to get them to mate. So in some instances, the top priority animals just don\u2019t get bred together.<\/span><\/p>\n

But one success story has had Washingtonians cooing and making baby noises at their newspapers or computer monitors: the birth of two baby clouded leopards<\/a> in March. Although our tour didn\u2019t include the fragile cubs, we did get to meet their parents, who are just as enthralling. And that\u2019s their purpose, really: to inspire. As Monfort puts it: \u201cWe want to inspire people with the National Zoo so they will get involved in conservation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter what your opinion about zoos, without them, many animal species \u2013 <\/span>Przewalski\u2019s<\/span> horses and black-footed ferrets among them \u2013 would now be extinct.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington D.C.\u2019s gorgeous Rock Creek Park is renowned as one of the most diverse and most visited zoos in the country, welcoming more than two million visitors each year (for free \u2013 that\u2019s right, $0!). But the largely unknown gem of the place isn\u2019t in downtown D.C., but rather 70 miles east in Front…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,48],"tags":[253,7,254,255,256],"class_list":["post-1180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservation","category-ecology-and-society","tag-cheetahs","tag-conservation","tag-conservation-research-cetner","tag-species-survival-plan","tag-zoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}