The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) is a unit of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

located on a campus located just outside the town of

Front Royal, Virginia Front Royal is the only incorporated town in Warren County, Virginia, United States. The population was 15,011 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Warren County. History The entire Shenandoah Valley including the area to become F ...

. An extension of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., the SCBI has played a leading role in the fields of

veterinary medicine Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in animals. Along with this, it deals with animal rearing, husbandry, breeding, research on nutri ...

, reproductive physiology and conservation biology since its founding in 1974. Previously named the Conservation and Research Center, the CRC became known as the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2010 as a symbol of its growing independence from the captive animals associated with the traditional images of zoos.

History

The land on which the SCBI lies has a history dating back to 1909, when the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

leased some 42 area farms. In the years predating

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the land served as a series of

U.S. Army Remount Service A part of the Quartermaster Corps, the U.S. Army Remount Service provided horses (and later mules and dogs) as remounts to U.S. Army units. Evolving from both the Remount Service of the Quartermaster Corps and a general horse-breeding program unde ...

depots, supplying horses and mules to the military. The federal government ultimately purchased the land in 1911 and began construction on the Ayleshire Quartermaster Remount Depot. Completed in 1916, the Depot consisted of eleven barn and stable facilities, hundreds of miles of split-rail fencing, many miles of access roads, and a rail yard facility for the import and export of animals. The Ayleshire Quartermaster Remount Depot remained in operation throughout both world wars, and was eventually expanded to include a canine training facility and detention barracks for 600 German and Italian prisoners of war. In 1948

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

passed legislation transferring ownership of the land to the Department of Agriculture, which redeveloped the property into a beef cattle research station. In conjunction with the

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six regi ...

(Virginia Tech), the USDA experimented with various environmental and husbandry conditions, designed to quantitatively and qualitatively improve the meat production of various cattle breeds. The Department of State leased part of the compound from USDA for use as an emergency relocation and communications site, with support infrastructure for the Secretary of State and 700 other departmental employees. The USDA closed the station in 1973, leaving the site temporarily vacant. The Conservation and Research Center was founded in 1974 when the director of the National Zoo, Dr. Theodore Reed, recognized the need for a captive breeding facility and initiated negotiations to obtain the land. The title was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1975, and work was begun immediately on developing the site into a zoological research facility. Today the SCBI is host to range of zoological and ecological research. It hosts a

forest dynamics Forest dynamics describes the underlying physical and biological forces that shape and change a forest ecosystem. The continuous state of change in forests can be summarized with two basic elements: disturbance and succession. Disturbance Forest ...

plot that is part of the

Center for Tropical Forest Science The Center for Tropical Forest Science, or CTFS, was a consortium of forest researchers who pursued long-term research on tree populations using comparable census method. The work developed out of a study of 50 hectares of forest on Barro Colorado I ...

/Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory, and has hosted the Mid-Atlantic core site in the

National Ecological Observatory Network National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a large facility program operated by Battelle Memorial Institute and funded by the National Science Foundation. In full operation since 2019, NEON gathers and provides long-term, standardized da ...

since 2013.

Programs

Amongst the SCBI's most well known research programs are those based on the captive breeding, and reintroduction, of such endangered species as the black-footed ferret (''Mustela nigripes''), the clouded leopard (''Neofelis nebulosa''), and the

Matschie's tree-kangaroo Matschie's tree-kangaroo (''Dendrolagus matschiei''), also known as the Huon tree-kangaroo is a tree-kangaroo native to the Huon Peninsula of northeastern New Guinea island, within the nation of Papua New Guinea. Under the IUCN classification, ...

(''Dendrolagus matechiei''). However, despite its accomplishments, the SCBI has not been exempt from controversy. In 2001, the former Smithsonian Secretary, Lawrence M. Small, backed by former Zoo Director Dr. Lucy Spelman, proposed the closure of the facility as a cost-saving measure. Opposition from the public and the scientific and conservation communities forced Secretary Small to back down from this decision. Afterwards, the leadership of Lawrence M. Small was shown to be fraught with corruption and waste, and he resigned as Secretary in 2007. Since the departure of Small, the SCBI has formed many long term partnerships (e.g. with

, George Mason University (Smithsonian-Mason Global Conservation Studies Program), and

) to help ensure its long-term viability.

Specimens

Currently, the SCBI's collection of animals stands at over 400 specimens, including 17 mammalian and 15

avian Avian may refer to: *Birds or Aves, winged animals *Avian (given name) (russian: Авиа́н, link=no), a male forename Aviation *Avro Avian, a series of light aircraft made by Avro in the 1920s and 1930s *Avian Limited, a hang glider manufacture ...

species. Ordinarily closed to the public, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute hosts an annual open-house event each fall. The "Autumn Conservation Festival" is sponsored by Friends of the National Zoo (FONZ) and provides an opportunity for members of the public to tour the grounds and veterinary facilities, interact with the staff and learn more about the research conducted at the SCBI. The "Autumn Conservation Festival" is held on the first weekend in October. FONZ also hosts a summer sleepaway camp on the site for children ages ten to fifteen. Some of the species kept here include

American bison The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply Bubalina, buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongs ...

hooded crane The hooded crane (''Grus monacha'') is a crane native to East Asia and a frequent migratory bird in Japan. Description It has a grey body. The top of the neck and head is white, except for a patch of bare red skin above the eye. It is one of t ...

s, red-crowned cranes,

white-naped crane The white-naped crane (''Antigone vipio'') is a bird of the crane family. It is a large bird, long, about tall, and weighing about , with pinkish legs, a grey-and-white-striped neck, and a red face patch. Distribution The white-naped crane br ...

maned wolves The maned wolf (''Chrysocyon brachyurus'') is a large canine of South America. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, and Paraguay, and is almost extinct in Uruguay. Its markings resemble those of foxes, but it is neither a fox nor a w ...

cheetah The cheetah (''Acinonyx jubatus'') is a large cat native to Africa and central Iran. It is the fastest land animal, estimated to be capable of running at with the fastest reliably recorded speeds being , and as such has evolved specialized ...

s, a

mariana crow The Mariana crow (''Corvus kubaryi'') (Chamorro name: ''aga'') is a species of the crow family from the South Pacific. It is a glossy black bird about long and known only from the islands of Guam and Rota. It is a rare bird which has steadily ...

, black-footed ferrets,

persian onager The Persian onager (''Equus hemionus onager''), also called the Persian wild ass or Persian zebra, is a subspecies of onager (Asiatic wild ass) native to Iran (Persia). It is listed as Endangered, with no more than 600 individuals left in the wil ...

Hartmann's mountain zebra Hartmann's mountain zebra (''Equus zebra hartmannae'') is a subspecies of the mountain zebra found in far south-western Angola and western Namibia, easily distinguished from other similar zebra species by its dewlap as well as the lack of strip ...

s and

scimitar-horned oryx The scimitar oryx (''Oryx dammah''), also known as the scimitar-horned oryx and the Sahara oryx, is a ''Oryx'' species that was once widespread across North Africa. In 2000, it was declared extinct in the wild on the IUCN Red List. A captive br ...

References

External links

Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal Campus

Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute at the Smithsonian Institution Archives
{{Authority control Virginia Tech Warren County, Virginia Smithsonian Institution research programs Articles containing video clips National Zoological Park (United States) 1974 establishments in Virginia Biological research institutes in the United States Research institutes in Virginia