Aussie Finch Forum

Well there ya go ...
Arthur I wish I had of said that ..
Then if I said it all hell would have broken lose ..

What did you mean by conventional means? Was it to undo the hybrid If it was fertile?

I guess I was cryptic since I'm open to coming under fire bere but as somone who has worked with plant gene banks for many years I can't see anything wrong with preserving potentially useful variation by introgressing traits into another species. The idea of species is a narrow view of the complex breeding population that exists over space and time. we only ever see a snap-shot of that but are told to preserve something that is actually going to change with or without human intervention. Simple traits like face colour in stars segregate and are easily selected for and actually wouldn't affect fitness in the wild and spontaneously turn up ther eanyway and perhaps a poplation in the past or future might have this trait fixed. Would it be terrible if aviculturists were to allow genetic pollution of these two populations - probably not in the aviary but in the wild it's a matter of opinionion. Should a southerner moving to Darwin bring their white rumped double bars that might escape?

If it came down to the last Aberdeen (red-headed) finch should you allow it to die or should you "preserve the genes" by deliberately creating a hybrid population and then attempting to back cross, and inbreed teh hybid population select for those traits that consitute the Aberdeen? Genetically there is very little difference between the two and I don't consider the opporunity to synthesise the species rather than loose the species to be wrong. What would be wrong is to claim that these hybrids are exactly the original species while that species exits but if it's gone then what does it matter and aviculture should thank you not condemn you.

Munias are another problem, again they are closely related and produce fertile hybrids but there are so many of them that untangling hybrids of more than two species is unlikely. Unfortunately and enevidabley mistakes are made and interspecific matings will happen contaminating the captive populations and unless you are the one that wants to spend generations selecting the hybrids will accumulate more "alien" genes so deliberate hybridisation is a bad idea. Line breeding ensures that the species stay separate as that is desirable but these inbred populations do decrease in fitness and so outcrossing can increase the vigor of a line but how wide you want to go is a problem if you want to maintain the characteristics of the particular species/subspecies/race/form. Here there are so many local races of spice finch. I haven't been able to get any to breed and certainly I keep them together but I'd be damned happy if they bred/inerbred as there is no captive population.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.