Jim Jackson and Christine Jurzykowski .pdf

Jim Jackson and Christine Jurzykowski and their staff of naturalists and veterinarians run the

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, located about eighty miles south of Dallas.Its 2,700 acres of rolling

hills and grasslands make it an ideal sanctuary for beleaguered wildlife from around the

globe.The white rhino, threatened by poaching in Africa, finds safe haven at Fossil Rim.The

Fossil Rim staff hopes that these animals are taking their first steps toward recovering in the

wild.Research and breeding programs there focus on saving species before they are lost to

future generations and one day repopulating them in the wilds.Fossil Rim’s record speaks for

itself.Since receiving its first pair of red wolves in 1989, the facility has had nineteen surviving

births, paving the way for the red wolf’s successful reintroduction into the wild.This is

impressive, considering that worldwide, more cheetahs die than are born every year in the

wild.Many Fossil Rim cheetahs have been given to zoos or other captive breeding programs so

that those groups will not take wild cheetahs for their stocking programs.Fossil Rim also has

successfully bred addax antelope into a herd of 100, believed to be the largest in the

world.Though most of its efforts focus on animals in trouble, Fossil Rim also devotes resources

to conservation efforts in native habitats.The story behind Fossil Rim is one of both altruism and

entrepreneurship.In the early 1970s, oilman Tom Mantzel purchased 1,400 acres of what was

then Waterfall Ranch, an exotic game ranch.He wanted to turn it into a sanctuary for a growing

list of rare animals and soon gathered sixteen nonnative or endangered species on the

property.Fossil Rim Wildlife Ranch, as Mantzel renamed it, became the first ranch to participate

in the Species Survival Plan of the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums.By

1984, however, the American petroleum industry had collapsed, and the Texas economy was

suffering.Mantzel needed money to support his hobby, so he opened the preserve to the public

for a fee.He added a snack bar and a souvenir store.Mounting oil losses forced Mantzel to take

on two partners.At first, they supplied funds to keep the ranch operating, but in 1987 they

bought Fossil Rim outright.Under their direction, Fossil Rim has made great strides.Not all are

endangered, but all serve to bring in paying tourists to support the refuge.On the staff are

naturalists and veterinarians who carry out a variety of groundbreaking projects.For example,

the staff is working to perfect reproductive technologies to create a larger gene pool for the

addax antelope.They also carry out captive breeding research of white rhino, using a ’teaser’

male in one enclosure to encourage breeding by a male in an adjacent one.Fossil Rim

researchers are testing techniques for reversible contraception that controls animal populations

in captivity but that can be reversed when they are released into the wild.To finance this work,

Jackson and Jurzykowski use their entrepreneurial imagination to capitalize on various revenue

sources.There is the Foothills Safari Camp, packaged especially for ’safari’ goers.Its seven tents

accommodate a maximum of fourteen adult guests, except on special family weekends when

children are allowed.This camp is not exactly an African safari of old.Meals are taken in a

pavilion with large windows for viewing wildlife.Weather permitting, campers enjoy gourmet

meals around the campfire.Rates are $150 per tent per night.In 1992, revenues from tourism

topped $2.2 million, but Jackson and Jurzykowski still had to make up the $400,000 difference

between revenues and expenses.In 1996, Fossil Rim made its first profit.Adopt a PotholeWith

nesting habitat the key, the problem for North American waterfowl is how to make farming

compatible with waterfowl production.Potter recognized a need to act when he noted a

precipitous decline in migratory duck populations.Between the 1950s and the 1980s, North