A population like this couldn't stand too many years with only a couple of animals born into it.

This population of right whales is one of the most endangered populations of large mammals anywhere in the world. This is our white rhino. This is our giant panda.

This is an exciting year ... witnessing a population on the brink of extinction exhibit signs that it might actually make it, that it might have a fighting chance.

You have to save the habitat, you have to save the population - not individual animals. What you want to save is the foundation, the basic infrastructure from which resources are produced. You can't save Fifi and Boo-Boo and Thumper.

Genetics is very much about having large numbers of animals so you can select the elite population and multiply them up to produce the next generation effectively.

A large proportion of the global population is in this region, and beyond that there is a diversity of animals that are thought to be important in the generation of these pandemic viruses.