You're absolutely right that 'the main problem is not the DNA, but getting rid of the introduced animals.' That's why the recent successful eradication of pigs, goats and cats is great news! (They're working on the rats...).

An interesting point to highlight is that of the alleles (unique versions of the same genetic region) found in the historic specimens, there are four possible fates: 1) preserved on both Champion and Gardner-by-Floreana, 2) preserved on Champion but not Gardner-by-Floreana, 3) preserved on Gardner-by-Floreana but not Champion, 4) lost. Because the Champion population is so small in comparison to Gardner-by-Floreana, one might have expected that '2' above would be very unlikely - in other words that all the diversity of the original population remaining on Champion would also be represented on Gardner-by-Floreana. We found, though, that there was one allele from the historic specimens now survives only on Champion. This is what makes us recommend that birds from both islets should be used in a reintroduction.
.-= Karen James´s last blog ..Shiny things =-.