Drawbacks of Ex-situ Conservation

1. It is to be used as a last resort, or as a supplement to in-situ conservation because it cannot recreate the habitat as a whole.
2. Ex-situ conservation removes the species from its natural ecological contexts, preserving it under semi-isolated conditions whereby natural evolution and adaptation processes are either temporarily halted or altered by introducing the specimen to an unnatural habitat.
3. The preserved specimen’s adaptation processes are frozen altogether, when re-released, the species may lack the genetic adaptations and mutations which would allow it to thrive in its ever-changing natural habitat.
4. Seed banks are ineffective for certain plant genera with recalcitrant seeds that do not remain fertile for long periods of time. Diseases and pests foreign to the species, to which the species has no natural defense, may also cripple crops of protected plants in ex-situ plantations and in animals living in ex-situ breeding grounds.