Species survival plans and genetic rescue programmes use captive animals as genetic repositories, raising welfare questions about housing conditions, breeding management, and the purpose of captive existence.
Genetic conservation programmes in zoos serve a genuine conservation function, but the welfare of individual animals maintained as genetic resources deserves consideration beyond their breeding value. Animals that will never be released but are maintained to prevent the extinction of their captive lineage deserve the same welfare standards as animals kept for public display — arguably higher, as their contribution to conservation makes their care an institutional responsibility. Programmes that use hormonal manipulation, assisted reproduction, and forced pairing for genetic reasons should have explicit welfare monitoring to assess the costs to individual animals of these management interventions.