That success is pleasing. That they can breed successfully in captivity and can be successfully released can help replenish the greatly diminished wild populations. However I wonder what is meant by this: “add new genes”. What new genes? Where would they have come from? The captive sample came from wild birds, presumably not long enough ago (in number of generations) to have accumulated useful mutations in the meantime, unless they had been irradiated (obviously not a serious suggestion). So any genetic material in the captive birds should be present in wild populations. The species does not vary over its geographical range and it appears individuals potentially move within the whole geographic range of the species. So can someone explain this new genes idea? Or is it simply a set of words that was inserted to overstate a case, because it gives the illusion of good PR?
Philip
