Quote:
Originally Posted by Sun Wukong
The question should be: if the two subspecies are so similar, why not crossbreed them instead of starting with an extremely small founding population? There have been speculations that this crossbreeding might interfere with future reintroduction plans, as the Southern subspecies might not be adapted to the habitat of the Northern subspecies. However, then why not at least "try" F1 hybrids, like the one specimen at Dvur?
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As far as i am aware, the difference is mainly genetical. Therefore, when trying to keep the animal in this world why would you crossbreed. To save some of the northern white rhino's genetics? You could do that in a "frozen" DNA databank...
If it was up to me, i'd say either try and keep the northern white's pure or let them die out and replace them with southern whites when the area is calm enough and there are enough spare ones around. Having hybrids around won't really help anything would it?
Why would reintroduction plans fail with pure southern whites btw, as far as i know they are remarkably similar so i don't see a problem with reintroduction of pure whites...
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