Zoos play an essential part in conservation efforts

Ross Minett's timing could hardly be worse (Letters, 8 September). He invites readers to mistrust the conservation claims of zoos and, by implication, other captive breeding programmes days after a Scottish game park announced the birth of an endangered rhino.

Scotsman readers, in the same week, will have read of disappearing songbirds and other species, poisoned eagles and slaughtered tigers. Recently, there was a story about the success of Chinese zoos, which are now breeding rare pandas in industrial quantities.

Readers concerned by the ever-increasing list of species under threat of extinction will no doubt have little difficulty in entrusting zoos with the vital task of species conservation.

GRAHAM M McLEOD, The Muirs, Kinross