http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/05/ ... le-royale/"Interesting and a must read for dog breeders who use successful wild populations descended from a small number of individuals as justification for closed registries. Even under natural selection and with a 'genetic rescue' in the relatively recent past, these animals have failed."
Silent summer: No wolf pup yips heard on Isle Royale
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Silent summer: No wolf pup yips heard on Isle Royale
Re: Silent summer: No wolf pup yips heard on Isle Royale
Excellent article - thanks for posting.
Continuing the info on Dr. Plummer's dog breeding - his strain of very inbred lurchers came close to dying out because the second-last b itch only came into season once in her life, and her daughter never came on heat at all. Enthusiasts did take over and continue the line with a distantly-related outcross, but they are not everybody's type of dog and there are very few left.
Compare with the White Chillingham cattle in UK, which has been a closed herd for (from memory) nearly 400 years, receives no veterinary attention (because they are truly wild) and still breeds healthy and fertile animals. Herd numbers do not increase to a level the park area cannot support.
Many wild animals e.g. badgers, weasels, stoats, rabbits, deer - are very closely inbred. Survival of the fittest takes care of their health. One presumes that one outcross every now and then (as seen with the wolf pack in the article) is sufficient to keep the family lines going.
Almost all the dog breeds we see today were created through inbreeding and line breeding. Extreme inbreeding is not the way, though - it has to be done with a judicious eye, and however anyone interprets 'cull' there are individuals that must be discarded for breeding purposes.
My personal opinion is that many pure breeds need an outcross right now. Some (e.g. dalmatians) have successfully had one. A single outcross and back to the existing gene pool would be valuable in most pedigree dog breeds. Some have already had that on the quiet - a good eye can tell when a different breed has been sneaked in.
Continuing the info on Dr. Plummer's dog breeding - his strain of very inbred lurchers came close to dying out because the second-last b itch only came into season once in her life, and her daughter never came on heat at all. Enthusiasts did take over and continue the line with a distantly-related outcross, but they are not everybody's type of dog and there are very few left.
Compare with the White Chillingham cattle in UK, which has been a closed herd for (from memory) nearly 400 years, receives no veterinary attention (because they are truly wild) and still breeds healthy and fertile animals. Herd numbers do not increase to a level the park area cannot support.
Many wild animals e.g. badgers, weasels, stoats, rabbits, deer - are very closely inbred. Survival of the fittest takes care of their health. One presumes that one outcross every now and then (as seen with the wolf pack in the article) is sufficient to keep the family lines going.
Almost all the dog breeds we see today were created through inbreeding and line breeding. Extreme inbreeding is not the way, though - it has to be done with a judicious eye, and however anyone interprets 'cull' there are individuals that must be discarded for breeding purposes.
My personal opinion is that many pure breeds need an outcross right now. Some (e.g. dalmatians) have successfully had one. A single outcross and back to the existing gene pool would be valuable in most pedigree dog breeds. Some have already had that on the quiet - a good eye can tell when a different breed has been sneaked in.
A dog is never bad or naughty - it is simply being a dog
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