FRONT ROYAL, Va. — After cautiously sniffing the grass, three male cheetahs at the animal-breeding center here suddenly began running in frenzied circles. It was a sign that a female cheetah that normally lives in the yard was in heat.


Then one of the males let out a low, seal-like bark — a signal for an even higher state of arousal. The other males were excused.


To maximize the chances for successful breeding, scientists have learned to separate cheetahs by gender, even preventing them from seeing each other before they mate. It turns out that familiarity can be a turnoff for cheetahs, too.


Finally, it was time to bring in the female. She seemed mystified by the male cheetah’s eagerness and failed to assume a mating position. The encounter fizzled.


With extinctions rising and habitats being destroyed, zoos are trying to breed about 160 endangered species in captivity. But while mating in the wild seems largely primal and effortless, in captivity it can be anything but.


Eighty-three percent of those species in North American zoos are not meeting the targets set for maintaining their genetic diversity, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums reports. In the case of cheetahs, fewer than 20 percent of those in North American zoos have been able to reproduce.


Zoos must figure out how to mate captive cheetahs and many other animals as so-called insurance populations, before their situation in the wild becomes untenable, said Jack Grisham, who has coordinated the association’s cheetah breeding plan for 20 years. But the disappointing success rate has led some field conservationists to question whether zoos should be in the breeding business. Many say they would prefer to see the money redirected to preserving wild habitats and species.


“I’d be happier about captive breeding if I thought it helped wild cheetahs,” said Luke Hunter, president of Panthera, a nonprofit group that works on global conservation efforts for big cats in the wild, including cheetahs. “Free of threats, they breed like rabbits in the wild. They don’t need supercostly assisted reproduction — they need a place to roam.”


Each year the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington spends about $350,000 on breeding cheetahs at its 3,200-acre campus here in Front Royal, which houses 18 other species. That budget supports data collection and the logistics of long-distance matchmaking, among other expenses. Similar cheetah breeding programs exist at four other domestic centers run by zoos.


Yet despite two decades of sustained effort, the captive population of 281 cheetahs in North America gives birth to only 15 cubs, on average, a year, exactly half of what their keepers estimate is necessary to maintain a healthy replacement level.


Cheetahs are much more finicky than, say, their big-cat cousins, lions and tigers, which reproduce with ease. But they are not nearly as difficult to breed as pandas, which have not produced a cub in captivity in the United States since 2010.


Although they are not critically endangered, the world’s population of cheetahs has plummeted. At the turn of the 20th century, roughly 100,000 cheetahs roamed from Africa to the Mediterranean to India, according to the Smithsonian. Today, Panthera and zoo association officials estimate that 7,000 to 10,000 remain in the wild as a result of habitat loss, poaching, and conflicts with farmers and ranchers.


Panthera promotes proven programs that help cheetahs survive alongside people. The group advises small livestock owners on how to prevent the marauding cats from devouring their animals, and it even donates trained guard dogs for the job. But no matter how aggressively conservation groups fight to preserve wild populations, Mr. Grisham said, the pressures are so great that zoo animals may someday have to serve as a genetic insurance bank.


‘Noah Got It All Wrong’


Breeding programs are not just about preserving species; they are about ensuring that zoos thrive, too. Until the 1970s, zoos could capture animals they wanted to exhibit. But a growing awareness of the vulnerability of many species led to treaties. And the Endangered Species Act of 1973 restricted imports of threatened animals, even by zoos.


So zoos began running coordinated breeding programs for threatened species. Then in 2000, the association opened a Population Management Center run by the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago to carry out detailed demographic and genetic analyses of breeding among animals, threatened or not, at 235 zoos. Staff members draft recommendations on how best to breed each of these populations.