Old Argument re:Hybrids
- From: "Jois" <firstjois@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 10:37:25 -0400
From Reuters:Lions dying in Indian zoo after failed experiment By Palash Kumar
Sun Sep 17, 3:30 AM ET
CHANDIGARH, India (Reuters) - Twenty-one lions are dying in a zoo in north
India after a cross-breeding experiment to boost the park's attractions went
disastrously wrong.
In the 1980s officials at the Chhatbir Zoo in the northern city of
Chandigarh, bred captive Asiatic lions with a pair of African circus
animals, resulting in a hybrid species.
Within a few years it became obvious it had not worked.
The offspring found it hard to walk, let alone run, because their hind legs
were weak. And by the mid 1990s the big cats -- which live for up to 20
years in captivity -- showed symptoms of failing immune systems.
But it wasn't until 2000 that the breeding program was ended, and the male
lions given vasectomies, by which time the zoo had 70 to 80 such lions.
Their number dwindled slowly, with disease killing some and some dying of
wounds inflicted by other lions.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060917/wl_nm/environment_india_lions_dc
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We often used to drag up examples of lion/tiger crosses (as well as dog/wolf
and dog type/dog type crosses) to illustrate the possible results of modern
human/Neanderthal crosses. Over the time the attitude in this newsgroup
from no interbreeding to possibly some interbreeding to _____________ - I
don't know how the group feels about this issue now.
Cross breeding dogs is popular among breeders and buyers right now. Poodles
crossed with just about anything to get a dog that does not produce the
dander that causes human allergies is one example. Some breeders I have met
(looking for a puppy) speak frankly about their failures - puppies (and
later dogs) that don't have a mixture of traits that would make them
attractive, ungainly body shapes, disproportion of legs to body to head
sizes, and puppies that only live for a few days, not mature enough to make
it or some other problems that pops up in the cross breed. I only bring
this dog cross breeding up because so many people have or know of canine
cross breeds that they will say cross breeds are simple, healthy, and so on
but you need to talk to breeders who are creating the cross breeds litter
after litter to know what the real problems are.
Jois
--
An interesting sign on the side of a barn in South Dakota:
"Eat lamb! 10,000 coyotes can't be wrong".
M Clark 101305
.
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