The European Endangered Species Programme or EEP is the most intensive type of population management for a species kept in European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) zoos. Even though EEP participation is mainly reserved for EAZA collections it is possible for non-EAZA collections to take part in these programmes. There are generally however more restrictions on such zoos (which may go as far as only holding non-breeding animals for educational purposes), and there are certainly restrictions on the number of programmes they may participate in. Each of the EEPs has a coordinator (someone with a special interest in and knowledge of the species concerned, who is working in an EAZA zoo or aquarium) assisted by a Species Committee.
The coordinator has many tasks to coordinate, such as collecting information on the status of all the animals of the species for which he or she is responsible kept in EAZA zoos and aquaria, producing a studbook, carrying out demographic and genetical analyses allowing them to produce a plan for the future management of the species.
Together with the Species Committee, recommendations are made each year about which animals should be allowed to breed, which individual animals should go from one zoo to another, the conditions of such a move (breeding loan, exchange, term free disposition, etc.) and so on.
Famous quotes containing the words european, endangered, species and/or programme:
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Man is imperfect. The reality he creates is always endangered by man.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Our species successfully raised children for tens of thousands of years before the first person wrote down the word “psychology.” The fundamental skills needed to be a parent are within us. All we’re really doing is fine-tuning a process that’s already remarkably successful.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)