Inbreeding depression has been a topic of interest in recent years fro
m a number of perspectives, particularly in the captive breeding of en
dangered species. Generally, the goal of captive breeding is to avoid
the detrimental effects of inbreeding depression and to retain genetic
variation for future adaptation. However, an important component of a
nother suggested approach to captive breeding is to purge rapidly the
population of its genetic load so that its long-term fitness is not co
mpromised. I have examined the effectiveness of purging the genetic lo
ad by documenting both the reduction in inbreeding depression and the
increase of the probability of extinction when there is continous full
-sib mating. When the genetic load is the result of lethals, the inbre
eding depression is quickly purged without a high probability of extin
ction, except when the total genetic load is high. On the other hand,
if the load is due to detrimentals of relatively small effect, the gen
etic load becomes fixed, the mean fitness is reduced, and the probabil
ity of extinction may be greatly increased. In other words, the succes
s of such a programme to purge genetic load without an increase in the
probability of extinction is highly dependent upon the genetic basis
of inbreeding depression, information that is not readily available fo
r most species.