oryx was hunted over centuries, reducing their population by the late 1960's to merely eleven living animals; not wanting to lose such a symbolic animal of the Middle East, these individuals were rescued and donated by King Saud to the Phoenix Zoo, the San Diego Zoo and their (at the time) newly-developed, Wild Animal Park, prior to his death in 1969. From these actions, those eleven oryx were successfully bred from the brink of extinction, and would go on to be re-released in the deserts of Jordan, Oman, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Starting in 1980, the first animals were set free. Currently, the wild animals number around 1,000 individuals, with a further 6,000-7,000 in zoos and breeding centres internationally. While captive breeding sounds like an ideal solution for preventing endangered animals from facing serious threats of extinction there are still reasons to believe that these programs can occasionally do more harm than good. Some detrimental effects include delays in understanding optimal conditions required for reproduction, failure to reach self-sustaining levels or provide sufficient stock for release, loss of genetic diversity due to inbreeding, and poor success in reintroductions despite available captive-bred young. Although it has been proven that captive breeding programs have yielded negative genetic effects in decreasing the fitness of captive-bred organisms, there is no direct evidence to show that this negative effect also decreases the overall fitness of their wild-born descendants. There is reason to demand for the release of animals from captivity programs for four main reasons: a lack of sufficient space due to overly successful breeding programs, closure of facilities due to financial reasons, pressure from animal rights advocacy groups, and to aid the conservation of endangered species. Additionally, there are many ethical complications to reintroducing animals born in captivity back into the wild. For example, when scientists were reintroducing a rare species of toad back into the Mallorcan wild in 1993, a potentially deadly fungus that could kill frogs and toads was unintentionally introduced. It is also important to maintain the organism’s original habitat, or replicate that specific habitat for species survival. See also Breeding in the wild European Endangered Species Programme (EEP) Ex-situ conservation Panda pornography Species Survival Plan or SSP World Conference on Breeding Endangered Species in Captivity as an Aid to their Survival or WCBESCAS ZooBorns References Conservation biology Zoology Animals in captivity Animal breeding