Introduction
The World Bank estimates that the human population will level out at between 10 - 12 billion by the end of this century. If we consider the impact our current population has already had on wildlife and wild places - for example 50 acres of forest are being destroyed every minute - and then multiply this by three, i.e. three times the demand for food, farmland, fresh water, firewood, raw materials, housing, recreation areas and roads - we can see that within the near future hundreds, if not thousands of animal species are doomed to extinction. Remember that much of this human population explosion will take place in the poorest countries of the world - which also just happen to be the countries richest in wildlife, much of it endemic.

The journey from abundance to extinction does not take long - the Passenger Pigeon for instance, once the most abundant species of bird on earth, took less than fifty years to disappear forever!

Conservation organizations are trying to save whatever ‘wild’ is left by the creation of nature reserves and National Parks, but currently they are fighting a losing battle, their efforts merely emulating King Canute in a fruitless bid to stem an irrepressible tide of human exploitation. The shambles of the last Earth Summit simply endorses the fact that most of the world’s governments are unwilling to act to save wildlife and wild places if it means affecting their economy. It is therefore left to non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) to do what they can. Plants, Reptiles and Amphibians, Insects, Invertebrates and Fish all have their champions, while with Birds and Mammals it is the tendency for organizations to specialize in certain Orders, though such as Fauna & Flora International and Birdlife International both have wide remits to save biodiversity as a whole. What became clear in the 1970’s was that no specialist global owl conservation organization existed, and it was to fill this void that the World Owl Trust was formed (as the British Owl Breeding & Release Scheme) in 1972. It now has in the region of 3000 members and is convinced that properly managed conservation-breeding programmes are a valid and valuable resource when allied to habitat protection and restoration, research and education.

The World Owl Project – What Is It?
The concept of the World Owl Project is a very simple one. It is to gather together in the UK and Europe as comprehensive a collection of the world’s owls as possible and to manage this population in a genetically and demographically correct manner in order to achieve self-sustainability through the means of co-operative breeding programmes. It is also our intention to become involved in ex-situ and in-situ conservation initiatives, research and education. For this to succeed we need the help of zoos, specialist collections, private breeders, field-workers, research scientists, veterinarians, governments of many countries, and the authorities and organisations concerned with wildlife regulations and protection. No longer can one person or even one organisation or collection hope to achieve these ideals without the assistance of like-minded colleagues in the same field – for without them we shall surely fail. Neither can co-operative breeding programmes be haphazard and uncoordinated. Fortunately, there is now a growing awareness of the importance of captive-breeding as a ‘last ditch’ conservation tool, and only the most bigoted of scientists still refuse to accept its principle and ever-increasing number of successes.

We need to tap in to and become part of the ‘Global Zoo’ movement in which personal ownership of an endangered species takes a back seat to its long-term survival through free exchange between participating members. While we ask all participants to commit themselves and their collections to the ethics of Joint Management Programmes, we fully appreciate that private breeders need to sell their surplus stock from time to time in order to finance their collections. Some may wish to commit themselves to the project as a whole, while others may wish to join forces for one species only. The organisation of the Project is designed to cater for both options. It is our hope that the World Owl Project will create links with, and bring together, everyone concerned with owl conservation and study, professional and amateur, corporate and private. Not least, professional corporate collections and organisations need to accept and acknowledge the invaluable part private breeders have already played in establishing captive stocks of many species. There is a vital need for both sides to work together in the future.

Why Do We Need A World Owl Project?
It is now widely accepted that for most wildlife species the immediate future is bleak. Natural habitat continues to be destroyed at an ever-increasing rate, and what little remains is invariably fragmented, producing an ‘island’ effect with no immigration or emigration of species within its confines. In Britain it is estimated that by the middle of this century one-fifth of the country will be under concrete and tarmac. Already millions of acres of countryside have been lost to housing, industry, roads and intensive agriculture and this destruction is mirrored in most other areas of the world, especially with respect to the destruction of forests, both tropical and temperate – the home of many species of owl and their prey. Nowhere is this more stark than in the Philippines – one the world’s biodiversity and endemicy ‘hot-spots’ – yet also one of the most threatened due to serious deforestation. It is for this reason that the World Owl Trust and UK Owl Taxon Advisory Group has for the past ten years been at the forefront of the Philippine Owl Conservation Programme (POCP) under the auspices of Fauna & Flora International. A glossy report of this programme is available from the World Owl Trust and it is planned for the project to continue for the foreseeable future. The Trust has also supported an owl status and ecology survey in Kalesar National Park, Haryana, northern India, and in 1998 was instrumental in the confirmation of the existence of the Flores Scops Owl (Otus alfredi) by part funding an expedition to Flores by the University of East Anglia. It is these kinds of projects that we intend to support through the World Owl Project and should reintroduction become necessary at any time, it is our hope that our breeding programmes will be able to provide the resources to make this possible.

For all too many wildlife species the establishment of self-supporting captive populations now seems to be the only short-term hope, and successes with the reintroduction of Mauritius Kestrels, White-tailed Sea Eagle, Californian Condor, Red Kite and many others, surely prove the value of such action, as do similar successes with the Peregrine, Bald Eagle, Bearded and Griffon Vulture, and the European Eagle Owl, Ural Owl and European Pygmy Owl in Sweden and Germany. To quote William G. Conway “captive propagation is now the only stock in the conservationists portfolio that stands between an inexorably increasing number of endangered species and extinction in the face of Man’s accelerating destruction of habitat”. He said that in 1977 at the ICBP/WBF/Audubon Society Symposium held in the USA, and the situation is now much, much worse than it was then.

Until the advent of the UK Owl Taxon Advisory Group overseen by the (then) Federation of Zoos in 1995, there had been a worrying lack of concern regarding competent co-operative management of currently available stocks of owls. Inbreeding was rife, deliberate hybridisation sometimes occurred, and a few breeders even attempted the breeding of mutations! Nor had much thought been given to the value of keeping sub-species apart, rendering any subsequent offspring worthless in terms of reintroduction or reinforcement programmes. This, plus increasing pressure from the E.U., anti-zoo and anti-captive-breeding lobbies make it even more imperative that we safeguard and continue to manage the species we hold, in a demographic, genetically correct and positive manner. Unless we do so, many will be lost to us in the not so distant future. It is now becoming all too obvious that the trend for the zoo communities of Britain and Europe is to concentrate their efforts solely on endangered or charismatic species, which makes them desirable exhibits. Without the input of the private sector it is highly likely that many small and medium sized species of owl will disappear from our collections eventually, including currently familiar species. Few zoos keep Otus or Glaucidium species for instance. This is a serious situation, for the likelihood of acquiring further wild-caught individuals to improve genetic diversity is now virtually nil in the current political climate, and despite recent successes at CITES level, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that in future, even the importation of captive-bred stock from other countries will be banned. It is therefore obvious that given such a scenario no single breeder or establishment can maintain viable populations of endangered species for very long, so co-operative breeding programmes are the only salvation – and this is where the World Owl Project comes in. All participants will be regarded as equals, no matter which sector they come from, and it is hoped that most of the old OTAG Working Group will agree to continue in their advisory role under the Chairmanship of the World Owl Trust’s Curator. This Working Group will meet on a regular basis in order guide the future actions and direction of the Project and we hope that most, if not all former OTAG members will continue to support this cooperative initiative.

Top priorities initially will be to:

Exchange Of Stock
For a breeder or collection to give up or separate its star attraction, for example a virile proven individual or a reliable breeding pair, requires tremendous commitment and often a sacrifice with possible financial consequences. While it is now normal for BIAZA zoos participating in Taxon Advisory Groups to freely exchange stock as loans as part of managed breeding programmes, many private owl keepers have often regarded this approach with suspicion. Even today when such cooperation is regarded as the best way forward, the subject can still give rise to rancour and a refusal to take part in such initiatives, to the obvious detriment of the programmes themselves.

Factors that contribute to such a situation include politics, greed and ego, though obviously the financial aspect is extremely important too.

We must all ask ourselves “what are we actually trying to do”, and “what are we achieving in reality?” Are we attempting to breed “the best exhibit’ (which all too often means the fat, stupid or lazy individuals) or the ones with the best ‘survivor’ genes (often the wary, shy or downright dangerous individuals which do not have ‘crowd appeal’)? All too often I fear, the answer is the former, which is in contradiction of our stated aim of breeding stock that can be used when necessary for reintroduction/reinforcement programmes.

Many of us claim to be breeding stock for eventual return to the wild, but what are we actually doing about caring for what little ‘wild’ remains, or recreating the ‘wild’ that we have already destroyed? Or to put it another way - “what are you doing about it?” And before we start beating our breasts about the felling of rainforests, the disappearance of wildflower hay meadows and the reclamation of marshland, take a look at your own gardens, estates or land holdings. How much ‘wild’ have you left intact?

It is sometimes claimed that we don’t have to worry so much any more because we now have the technical skills to preserve embryos in the ‘frozen zoo’. However, these techniques are still in their infancy, and in any case can do nothing about preserve the ‘learning behaviour’ that is often the key to survival in the wild. It is for this reason that the cooperative demographic and genetically correct conservation-breeding programmes overseen by the World Owl Project are of such vital importance at this juncture.

Education
Our ‘public’ collections also have another important role to play, i.e. that of educators raising the need for conservation of species and their habitats and generally raising ‘awareness’ of current issues - an aspect all too often ignored by the ‘anti-captivity’ lobby and sadly, sometimes by collection managers themselves. By and large we are not good at telling people what we are trying to achieve, or indeed achieving, and it will be the aim of the World Owl Project to rectify this weakness.

Public collections, talks and demonstrations can also be useful fundraisers, providing us with the means to carry out conservation projects both overseas and in the UK, as has already been demonstrated for the Philippine Owl Conservation Programme and others.

We need to build up better ethical attitudes about owl conservation-breeding programmes and the conservation of wildlife habitats. If we can succeed in this we can hopefully go some way towards actually saving some of the ‘wild’ itself - which may well result in another question being asked - “will there then be any need or justification for zoos or conservation-breeding programmes?” Somehow I think we are a long way from that day!

Inbreeding
Inbreeding depression is the ever-present bane of captive-breeding programmes, leading eventually to declining fitness and almost certain infertility in the long term. Yet all too many breeders still make little or no attempt to ensure that wherever possible, parents are not bred with offsprings, and siblings are never set up as breeding ‘pair’. Admittedly, it takes a little effort to try and find unrelated partners for our birds - but this is where cooperative breeding programmes come into their own. Here we have the means of moving differing bloodlines around to the benefit of the captive (and ultimate wild?) populations. And yes, this does sometimes mean parting with much valued stock for a while. But it also means sometimes receiving much valued stock! However, we would stress that anyone seeing the World Owl Project purely as an easy way of acquiring ‘sexy’ species for nothing, will soon be weeded out and bid a not so fond farewell!

High juvenile mortality is often an early sign of inbreeding depression, and in a study carried out in 1979 it was found that of 16 species studied, 15 proved more likely to survive past 6 months if the parents were unrelated. A later study of 44 species resulted in the same conclusions - pretty convincing statistics we would suggest! For the Scimitar-horned Oryx, non-inbred young only had a 5.4% mortality rate in their first year. For inbred individuals the mortality rate was 100%!

Much depends upon whether deleterious elements (alleles) exist within the genetic make-up of the founder population. Where little or no harmful genetic material is present, inbreeding presents no great problems for many generations e.g. Pere David’s Deer and Golden Hamster. However, where deleterious alleles are present in the founder population, this can quickly lead to the extinction of a captive (or even a wild) isolated population unless new bloodlines become available. Sadly, all too many of the owl species we hold are doomed in the long term for this reason. Inbreeding from such individuals obviously increases the chances of deleterious alleles meeting up and being expressed in their offsprings, and due to the unfortunate fact that more than a few of our founder stocks comprised just a single (sometimes related) pair, it is now obvious that some once familiar species are doomed to disappear in the very near future, e.g. ‘Savigney’s’ Eagle Owl, Pearl-spotted Owlet, while others are showing the first signs of demographic imbalance with one sex predominating in the broods that are being produced, e.g. males in the case of Great Horned Owl, Mackinder’s Eagle Owl, Aharoni’s Eagle Owl and Spectacled Owl. Without new (preferably wild origin) bloodlines being quickly introduced into our breeding populations, these too are on the rocky road to oblivion in our collections.

However, under present circumstances, we have little option but to continue breeding from obviously related pairs in such cases, but we repeat, when this is unnecessary it is incumbent upon the breeders to do all they can to avoid such a scenario and it is this we mean when we speak of ethical conduct within the World Owl Project.

Hybridization & Mutations
We only have one thing to say about the deliberate breeding of hybrids and mutations - while we are fully aware that mutants in particular are guaranteed ‘money-makers’, it must be realised that they are anathema to all the World Owl Project stands for and will be regarded as unethical conduct within our programmes.

It is our sincere wish that having read this introduction to the World Owl Project you will agree to continue working for the owls of the world and their habitats by joining forces with like-minded people in the Project.

WORLD OWL TRUST
The Owl Centre
Muncaster Castle
Ravenglass
Cumbria. CA18 1RQ
United Kingdom

Telephone: (+44) (0)1229 717393
FAX: (+44) (0)1229 717107

Registered Charity Number: 1055489 Limited Company Number: 5296745

The World Owl Trust is a member of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) and the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA). The Trust relies on a dedicated membership, visitors, donations and legacies.