Captive management of the . . .

• Main Authors: G. A. Wilson, K. A. Zittlau, J.S. NISHI
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: Fort Resolution; Northwest Territories; Slave River; Wood Bison
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.160.9103; http://www.enr.gov.nt.ca/_live/documents/documentManagerUpload/Captive_Management_of_the_Hook_Lake_Wood_Bison_Recovery_Project-Pt1.pdf

In this report we review issues in conservation genetics, which pertain directly to genetic management and captive breeding of wildlife. Our goal is to evaluate genetic management options for the Hook Lake Wood Bison Recovery Project (HLWBR), a community-based wildlife conservation project that was initiated in 1996 and is run co-operatively between the Government of the Northwest Territories (NWT), the Aboriginal Wildlife Harvesters ’ Committee (AWHC) and Deninu Kue ’ First Nation in Fort Resolution. A principal aim of the project is to salvage genetic diversity from the Hook Lake herd, a wild, free-ranging herd of wood bison in the Slave River Lowlands that is diseased with bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis) and brucellosis (Brucella abortus). The long-term goal of the co-operative project is to use a captive, disease-free herd to re-establish a healthy herd of free-ranging bison in the Hook Lake area. The current phase of the project, genetic salvage and captive-breeding, is based on a combination of techniques to propagate a healthy captive herd. From 1996 to 1998, a total of 62