Meant to Be Wild: The Struggle to Save Endangered Species through Captive Breeding

by Jan Deblieu

Jan DeBlieu's landmark work on captive breeding is a riveting analysis of one of the most controversial issues of our time.

Genres: Nature

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Jan DeBlieu is an American writer whose work often focuses on how people are shaped by the landscapes in which they live. Her own writing has been influenced by her adopted home in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Reviews

[Kristal Stidham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gave me a lot of food-for-thought and I learned a lot about preservation of species in the process. The book is a bit too involved for entertainment reading, but it would be great source material for research on any of the critters covered.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Praise:
Even if this is not the type of book you'd usually read, I'd encourage everyone to read the epilogue at the very least.

Criticism:
I think the author fails to realize that captive breeding is not a decision made lightly. It is an imperfect solution and there can be serious biological consequences to a species, but it is not used when a solution with fewer consequences can be found. Saying “captive breeding has consequences, animals should persist in the wild” is like saying “surgery sucks, our appendixes should just not burst.” I believe we would not have animals like the red wolf, black-footed ferret, and California condor in the wild today had it not been for captive breeding. Note: I don’t mention other species discussed in the book, simply because I know too little about those cases to have an opinion.

[Cienna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not for casual reading, this is an in depth look at the process of saving endangered species through captive breeding, and despite it being written "article-style" it can be a little intense on vocabulary for biologists. I wouldn't recommend this to people that aren't interested in biological science papers or conservation efforts.

[Jessa McCauley · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I disagree with the author on some of her views on captive animals, this is a very well researched and engaging book that presents varying viewpoints on how to succeed at restoring endangered species. This book was published in 1991, so I have the benefit of additional years to know which projects worked. Incredibly interesting to learn more about them though.

[Emily Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great piece of environmental writing, still relevant to today

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a long slog through this book. It wasn’t that the writing was poor or the material was not worthwhile. It was the dispiriting struggle after struggle to save endangered species that begged for breaks between chapters. But I kept coming back to learn about the plight of the red wolf, California condor, golden lion tamarin, black-footed ferret, whooping crane (you know, all the big names). There are surprising similarities: a wild population dwindles to a few individuals, spurring a desperate effort to save the species from extinction by making them captives. Challenges with trapping, breeding, raising, and ultimately release vary by species, but challenges are guaranteed. The most discouraging sections of this book were the human-human conflicts. Surprisingly, the ones emphasized here were not the traditional nature-lovers vs developers/farmers/hunters/loggers that threaten animals and their habitats (although this is a deep and gnarly divide). The combatants were scientists and conservationists who earnestly want to save a particular species, often divided by a thorny question: how should limited financial resources be allocated between managing the wild population and maintaining the captive population. Why release bred animals into the wild while mortality rates are still ridiculously high? But why build up captive stock when remaining suitable habitat shrinks away so there may be nowhere to release them in the future? Ow. Some of these programs seem ultimately futile, but so much effort has been invested it seems impossible to walk away and call it all a waste. The simplest lesson I took away is: Animals do a BETTER (and CHEAPTER) job taking care of themselves than we can, but we HAVE to provide them with HABITAT and other conditions that will enable them to do so. We need to jolt ourselves out of waiting for an eleventh-hour rescue, because by then it’s a nearly insurmountable task.