GENETIC POOL. The International CITIES Treaty, adopted by Congress in 1976, in an effort to maintain and protect endangered populations in ancestral habitats, prohibits the removal of Asian elephants and other endangered species from the wild and their importation into the United States. The stresses on habitat and space, poaching and unregulated hunting have severely limited the ability of native populations to maintain enough genetic diversity to survive. In the year 2000, there were 285 elephants in North America. Of these, only 35 are breeding females and many of these animals will no longer be able to breed due to advancing age. It is one of the unintended consequences of the CITIES Treaty that elephant populations in the West are limited in their ability to become self-sustaining.