I think if you were...trying to bring a species back, and repopulate a particular area, I think it's a bad idea and I think most of North American accredited zoos would probably agree with that. What's going on is you've got some animals that have become extinct because of natural selection which is a natural process, because of natural habitat changes. We know that the extinction rate has increased because of human intervention. That's a real issue. But trying to bring animals back and repopulate places that they have completely left extinct may be a little bit of a problem. In some cases you've got animals that have come in and filled a niche, and so you will boot out those animals that filled that niche, or you may be causing other competition problems.
Transcript for Clip 2 -- GMOs and Zoos:
When it comes to genetically modified organisms, [genetic engineering goes against the zoos belief of] conserving endangered species. The goal for the zoo business is to create as diverse of a genetic population of animals as possible. Because in order to conserve a species you need to have a very great genetic diversity of those animals. When it comes to genetically modified organisms, it seems to me you're almost doing the opposite. You're almost creating a smaller gene pool. With a smaller gene pool you can be causing more diseases. You've got a smaller gene pool. You've got animals that could be susceptible to some disease and if that were the case, if you have a smaller gene pool, you're going to wipe out a lot more animals. Every animal has weaknesses in their genes, if you are creating a smaller gene pool you are creating more animals with that same weakness.
I think the public would really be very critical of the way zoos approach genetically altered animals at a zoo. I really think we would see a lot of changes in attitudes if we started creating genetically altered animals here in a zoo. Then those people that look at a zoo as an organization that has responsible ethics and as a good source of information, might suddenly change. And they might start looking at a zoo strictly as a place to be entertained and not necessarily as a place to get accurate and correct information. I think we would see a change in the populations of our visitors, people that are more interested in just recreating and not educating and vice versa.
