00:00We are at the Pacific Pocket Mouse Captive Breeding Facility, where we brought animals into captivity back in 2012 to begin to captively breed them for a reintroduction, which hopefully will lead to recovery.
00:22We had the first pup that we produced in captivity last year have her own babies at the beginning of this season.
00:30The goal for the program is to grow the captive population to 200 animals so that we can begin to release groups of 50.
00:39So grow to 200, release to 50, and then grow it back up to 200.
00:43That way we can ensure the genetic variability of the captive population, as well as make sure we have a large enough release group that they're likely to survive the release.
00:53What we've learned in the first season was that females, when they come into estrus, which is their reproductive period, it can be as short as an hour, sometimes even shorter than an hour.
01:10And so we have to be here almost around the clock in order to catch them right when they're in physical estrus and also in behavioral estrus.
