Markets in the open firmament of heaven  

A gluttonous Baude writes about a forbidden French delicacy:

Anyway, if ortolans are so delicious and so sought-after, why not let somebody breed and grow them by the industrial cage-ful, like foie-gras geese or chickens for the slaughter? This kind of market-driven mass breeding would probably bring up the ortolan's numbers while also letting bizarre gourmands get their wicked fix. Even if civilized nations raise legal barriers, a shady factory in some backwater nation could do the job for now.

I'm no expert on the ortolan, but wouldn't such a market have come into being long ago if it were so easy to raise the birds in captivity? It's not like we see mass breeding of a lot of different game birds, especially the size of the ortolan -- and in any case I wonder if it isn't part of the charm of the whole affair to eat a wild bird (there certainly is enough ritualization of every other aspect of ortolan-eating).

But my real beef here is with the idea that market-driven mass breeding would bring up the ortolan's numbers. I'm sure it would bring more of these tasty treats within range of Will's greasy fingertips, but is raising birds in captivity and then devouring them really a solution to overharvesting and extinction? Put another way, has our consumption of chicken really perpeturated that species, or have we instead created a whole different animal? I'm not suggesting we stop eating chickens, but the idea that their domestication was somehow a good thing for biodiversity is pretty damned anthropocentric.