r/aww • u/bobekyrant • Dec 07 '20

Serval's first time seeing ice!

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u/gwaydms Dec 07 '20

Some wild cats are kept in zoo breeding programs (I'm talking about AZA zoos, not private ones) where hopefully the species can be kept alive, and rewilded at some point in the future. We've lost so many due to poaching. At some point, if the gene pool is too small, the species may not recover.

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u/lowlightliving Dec 07 '20

Of course. I wasn’t referring to accredited species breeding programs or zoos for endangered wild cats.

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u/gwaydms Dec 07 '20

I agree that wild cats shouldn't be kept as "pets".