SWA #20

Black, Richard. "Captive breeding 'weakens' beasts." 5 October 2007. BBC News. Article. 6 November 2011.

            The author appears to be unbiased as he simply presents facts and interviews from different research facilities throughout the United States.  He is writing for BBC News, which is primarily read by English people.  He summarizes research findings that species salmon that are captive bred lose their ability to reproduce much more quickly than their wild counterparts do.  I learned that many undesirable traits are eliminated from the gene pool because in the wild those fish eggs die off very quickly in comparison to captive breeding where all the eggs survive.  This will be useful in demonstrating the viewpoint of people against captive breeding because it actually harms the genetics of the populations.

Lynch, Michael and Martin O'Hely. "Captive breeding and the genetic fitness of natural populations." Conservation Biology 2.4 (2001): 363-378. Print.

            The source is objective and offers many scientific facts and research findings in relation to how genetics are affected through captive breeding.  However many of the findings appear negative because they show that unwanted traits become abundant in captive breeding because unlike the wild most of the fish survive.  According to the authors, this can severely damage the population especially if it is intended to release the captive individuals back into the wild.  I discovered that when these populations are released back into the wild even natural selection is not enough to remove the harmful traits from the population.  This source will also be useful in demonstrating the viewpoint against captive breeding due to the negative effects on the gene pool of populations.