Inbreeding in small captive populations causes measurable welfare impacts through reduced immune function, developmental abnormalities, and reproductive failure that require active genetic management.
Genetic management in zoo populations is a welfare intervention — inbreeding depression causes real, measurable welfare harm to individual animals through immune compromise, developmental problems, and reproductive failure. SSP breeding recommendations based on mean kinship calculations represent a systematic, coordinated approach to minimising this harm across entire captive populations. Gene banks extend effective genetic diversity across time. For conservation-relevant species, maximising genetic diversity is simultaneously a welfare and conservation imperative.