A Study On The Strategy Of Sustainable Development Of Wildlife Farming Of China

Wildlife farming is an industry newly emerged under the situation that wild resources declined constantly.Its major mission is to provide wildlife products and reduce exploitation pressure on wild resources through captive breeding.In our research,wildlife farming was divided into 3 categories according to the goals and functions:productive farming, domestication farming and conservation farming.The history,current status and problems of each category of wildlife farming represented by typical species were investigated.Policy issues,mechanical issues and technical issues restricting each of the farming categories were analyzed.A series of contermeasures to cope with these problems were proposed as well.The impact of animal welfare on the wildlife farming and countermeasures to improve animal welfare were also addressed.Productive farming is the farming of fully domesticated species that animals are able to grow,develop and reproduce under artificial conditions,and are distinctive from wild counterparts in genetics and possessing a steady potential to produce targeting products. Generally,productive farming has considerable scale,potential of increasing the quality and quantity of products,distinctive feature in technological and management processes,and complement industries.This research concentrated on fur farming for addressing restrictive issues in productive farming:1) lack of industrial organization and service system;2) trade depending on entrepreneur;3) technical foam;4) lack of brand and breed consciouseness.Five countermeasures to cope with these restrictions were proposed,including:1) adopt cooperative mode in the farming to enhance the coordination and competitive power;2) construct comprehensive service systems to ensure high quality support of all productive steps;3) promote the process of auction of far products under the service system;4) set up a nation wide association of fur industry to coordinate all cooperatives to reduce vicious domestic competition and improve international competitive power;5) rectify the industrial structure of fur farming and solve historical problems by using advantage of market dynamics.Domestication farming is the farming that focuses on domesticating wild species targeting at the realization of captive breeding and producing products.It is an initial phase of productive farming.Domestication farming is usually small in scale and incomplete of production chain. Techniques are developed substantially but cannot be spread extensively due to their immaturity.All breeding trials are tentative and riskful and not applicable to large-scale practice.Brown frog farming is typical domestication farming.Prominent problems include:1) Semi-artificial breeding based on natural ecosystem is low in efficiency and high in potentials of ecological risks;2) complete artificial breeding is far from maturation but spread extensively and attracted huge quantity of investments resulting in high risks.Countermeasures to cope with the blindfold spreading trend include:1) assess the ecological risks of natural ecosystem-based semi-artificial breeding scientifically,and temporarily stop the approval of such farming until ecological risks are fully assessed;2) set up proper mechanism to promote technical breakthroughs for comple(?)e artificial breeding;3) the developing mode of complete artificial breeding should be such that forerunner investors and research institutions cooperate in technical development under the support of government;forerunner investors and research institutions achieve economic re(?)urns through selling intellectual property rights,and government achieve social benefits.Conservation farming is the framing focusing on ex situ conservation.Its major mission is to provide suitable environment allowing wild animals breed and recover in captivity. Meantime,reasonable genetic and behavior management is applied to ensure the capability of adaptation to the wild environment required for reintroduction.Conservation farming requires to improve the population size in captivity,reduce the rate of genetic diversity loss through genetic management and maintain the adaptive capability to the wild environment.Zoos, wildlife-safaris,and wildlife breediag centers are typical institutions undertaking conservation farming of wildlife.Main problems in the farming include:1) zoos and wildlife safaris are usually lack of space to carry relatively large population of each species and insufficient in genetic management and behavioral management,although a large number of species are reared and valuable experience accumulated;2) wildlife breeding centers are successful mode of ex situ conservation,but lack of capability to rescue large number of species due to short of funding and space.Countermeasures include:1) apply admittance policy for endangered species breeding for zoos and wildlife safaris and enhancing the development of wildlife breeding centers to make them play a major role in the ex situ conservation;2) adopt the mode of "feeding-the-tiger with-the-tiger" to achieve independent development.Welfare of captive wildlife is recognized global wide in recent years.The problems of animal welfare in wildlife farms in China include:1).welfare conceptions are absent in management processes;2).welfare conceptions are not fully recognized by public;3). legislation and scientific instruction are weak in all aspects of animal welfare. Countermeasures include:a) perform systematic public education;b) improve the understanding of welfare requirement of each species and apply scientific directions in practice; c) change animal behavior mode by extensive artificial selection so as to lower the welfare requirement;d) enhanceg legislation and constructions of trade regulations;e) actively promote the welfare conception and practice,but avoiding precipitance.