To begin, the article I chose takes place in Melbourne. It was a breeding technique used to help increase the mountain pigmy possum population in Melbourne. Their highest numbers of success are documented now since the year 1996. They took males from Mount Hotham and introduced them to females located by Mount Buller. The two groups of possums have not been introduced in over 20,000 years leading to a lack of generic variation. Therefore it was unable to thrive in its environment leading to their decline of population.
Furthermore, the success to this research is a given. Females from mount Buller are a little bigger and have offspring that have survived longer than any other generation. The population is thriving. Genetic rescue is now considered to be a great observation technique and is successful with providing endangered animals with genetic variation. This will overall help with the animals survival.
Personally, I found this article extremely interesting. I also was attracted to the cuteness of the mountain pigmy possum. I hope that more people licensed enough to perform this type of genetic rescuing will do so in order to help other endangered animals survive. The fact that there was not enough genetic variation, can easily be fixed with the help of humans.
Reference:
University of Melbourne. "Genetic rescue boosts recovery of Australia's endangered mountain pygmy possums." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 October 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171023101750.htm>.
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