Przewalksi's Wild Horses, for example, are all set to return to Mongolia as soon as appropriate steppe is made ready. This of course brings us to the final twist. In the end it all comes down to attitude. To set up programs of captive breeding and pro-active habitat protection with the hope of sustaining viable populations of animals for 500 to 1,000 years seems an awfully long shot. The alternative to hope is simply to give up.
Nobody supposes that active intervention with captive breeding is ideal.
But it is necessary. Before Yesterday are available as paperbacks from Oxford University Press and Pimlico respectively.