BRONWEN ROBERTS, Johannesburg | Tuesday 6.45pm.
SOUTH African conservationists are to introduce artificial insemination among lions in game parks to save them from the harmful effects of inbreeding.
The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) said inbreeding among isolated lion populations in southern African game reserves had eroded their reproductive capacity and resistance to disease.
“In order to prevent and counteract inbreeding, new genetic material may be infused into an existing isolated population by means of either translocating unrelated individual animals between isolated populations or by artificially inseminating females using sperm from unrelated males in other populations,” it said.
However, translocating male lions between populations could lead to fighting between them and resident males, and to increased disease transmission, the trust said in a statement.
Artificial insemination, on the other hand, had already been used to produce cubs in captive big cats, including cheetah, ocelot and tiger.
The trust said the project, scheduled to start this month, would be carried out by its Wildlife Breeding Resource Centre (WBRC) and the Lion Safari Park outside Johannesburg.
No artificial insemination has yet been carried out anywhere in the world among free-roaming lions, it said.
The WBRC had over the past few years been collecting and banking sperm from lions which died in the wild.
18