The DNR's ESA would have nothing to do even if they wished to throw the space program budget at the wild aro population study. The US government has no jurisdiction in the areas the asian aros occur in. It's up to the gov't of the countries where the species occurs to commit to and accomplish the population study. To date, a total of zero agencies have stepped up to take on this responsibility. And, frankly, if the US decided to interceed and fund such a study, I'd be against it. There are far more important things to spend US money on right now in this country than to pump additional money away from the US.
As far as aro farms releasing stock to the wild, ...again, there's no incentive to do so. With no gov't department overseeing wild stocks, it leaves a big "HOW?" to the farms on the procedures for releasing their stock. There is no agency willing to oversee the transportation, accounting, release, and post-release studys of captive stock back to the wild. The farms also have no incentives to release expensive stock to the wild because they, currently, would receive no gov't credits or tax incentives to do so and most of their releases would result in increased poaching which would benefit the poachers with profits lost by the farms.
